Return of a Jedi
by JHMLYNDALE
Summary: Darth Vader collapses on the bridge of the Executor as visions through the force overwhelm him. He realises his son has been killed and Palpatine is responsible for ordering this. Acknowledgements to Timothy Zahn for the original plot bunny. Slightly revised from older version and being posted Sundays here. 23 chapters.
1. Chapter 1

_Heat._

_Twin Suns._

_Desert._

_Tatooine!_

_Movement._

_Somersault._

_Confidence._

_Confusion._

_Fighting_

_Pain._

_Death!_

_LUKE!_

"My Lord?"

Vader slowly realised where he was. He was on the bridge of the _Executor_, one knee resting on the deck where he'd been forced down by the power of the visions that had burned through his mind. He was acutely aware of his prosthetics, as he hadn't been for years, as they were the only parts of his body that were not aching in sympathy with the mental blow. Standing over him was Admiral Piett, one hand twitching slightly as he hesitated whether to dare touch the Dark Lord of the Sith.

"My Lord," Piett repeated, trying to decide how to ask if Vader needed help without insulting him, "are you… do you…"

Vader stood, one gauntlet pressing to the brow of his helmet, and loomed over Piett silently for a few moments as he gathered his thoughts. Piett's nervousness increased as Vader remained silent and the Admiral began to wonder if he, and the rest of the bridge crew, were about to be killed to hide the Dark Lord's moment of weakness.

"Thank you for your concern Admiral," Vader rumbled, "you may go about your duties."

"Ye-es My Lord," Piett replied in surprise before hurriedly retreating.

Vader turned back to gaze at the partially completed second Death Star and the greenness of the Forest Moon it and his flagship orbited. Waking visions were rare for any Force sensitive and those of the strength of what had flooded his thoughts were almost unprecedented. Two things only were certain. The first was that the images did not have the feel of something that was yet to happen, the events he'd seen had occurred and could not be changed. The second was that this meant that his son was dead and nothing he did could bring Luke back.

He needed to learn more, to mediate on the images and try to bring them fully into focus rather than being blurred impressions. Vader turned and strode from the bridge, noticing even in his distracted state how Piett glanced up nervously as he passed him. Piett's expression showed his fears and Vader realised suddenly just how appropriate that fear would normally be. Surprise nearly broke his stride as he realised just how strange his immediate reaction had been. As a Sith he should have crushed Piett's throat for his insolence in noticing his collapse, not felt actual gratitude for his subordinate's concern. Something very strange had happened and the sooner he reached his quarters to meditate and restore his mental balance the better.

The hyperbaric chamber often seemed like a prison as its thick walls closed and cut him off from the outside world but today it was more like sanctuary. Vader felt like he had shed a shell that had been growing increasingly tight, relieved at no longer being confined but vulnerable until his new defences hardened. Ignoring the automated systems as they did their tasks he turned his attention inwards, enhancing his short term memory and seeking more insight from the Force.

Meditation had always been difficult for him. For most Jedi it was like gazing into an open fire to see shapes in the flames but for Anakin Skywalker it had been like looking straight at a sun. For Vader it was different, he could see more subtleties now when he meditated but the fact his inner sight was no longer so overwhelmed reminded him of how his connection to the Force had been dimmed, and brought back remembered hate and resentment over his injuries. The irony that he had only gained the level of mastery he'd have required to filter his inner sight when this was no longer so necessary was not lost on Vader.

What also was not lost on him was how much he had loved his son and how much he desired revenge. They had barely met but their matched strength in the Force had let them know each other on a deep instinctive level. A bond had been formed and through that bond the visions had flowed and through that bond he had felt Luke die as powerfully across the light years as he had felt his mother die in his arms. A small voice of caution reminded him though that it had been feeling his mother die and avenging her with the slaughter of the Tuskens that had led him here to Vader's armour. Releasing his rage, however justifiable that rage was, had been one of the first major steps from the man he had been to what he had become.

Vader's meditation broke as he realised what he was thinking, behind his mask his jaw dropped as he noticed that the part of him that was Anakin Skywalker, that he had been trying to purge and suppress for decades, was no longer skulking in the recesses of his mind. For a brief moment Vader had known his son's mind and felt the goodness and compassion resonate with parts of him he had thought lost.

He was not Anakin Skywalker but, somehow, he was not Darth Vader any more either- he was both. Anakin would have tried to control his desire for revenge, even if this control failed as with the Tuskens, rather than being filled with a grim determination. Darth Vader would have denied his grief and the love he'd felt for Luke and justified revenge through supposedly wounded pride rather than admit his true feelings.

For the first time in decades he felt whole, no longer split between a public persona and his inner self. Between the hard invulnerable shell of Darth Vader and the wounded soft flesh of the man within. Even as a Jedi he had felt a separation between the image of calm detachment he was meant to project and how much he cared about those around them, be they people, animals, or even droids. This separation had only worsened with his acceptance of the Sith ways and the strain had begun to tell as the years passed. Dormant feelings had made themselves known, like gases released from a long stagnant pond, as Luke had disturbed Vader's delicate balance and they rose.

Vader clamped down on his mental shielding. It was probably too late and had probably been far too late even when he was still kneeling in shock on the _Executor's_ bridge, but until he knew what he had become he did not want his master, the Emperor, to learn of the change in him. The priority, for now, was to learn more of the circumstances of Luke's death. Vader was sure that his son had been on Tatooine and that the only thing that could have taken him there was concern for the smuggler in the same way as that concern had drawn him to Cloud City.

That meant that disgusting corpulent slug Jabba had probably been involved since he had been given possession of the smuggler. Vader nodded to himself as this suspicion was confirmed as he recovered more of the images and recognised Jabba's sail barge. That did not answer the most important question though and seeking the answer Vader tried to concentrate on the parts of the vision coloured by surprise and confusion. If he could see those in more detail then he might discover just how such an unworthy opponent, so pitiful a foe, had defeated Luke.

_'Yes,' _Vader thought, as more came into focus, '_Luke was over the Sarlacc pit, the signal was given, and suddenly his new lightsaber was arcing towards him and Luke had turned and was somersaulting over the guards to meet it.'_

Pride at his son's grace and at his accomplishment in constructing a new lightsaber disrupted the vision for a moment, but then Vader felt his son's shock as the lightsaber changed direction. Another Force grip, weaker but more skilled, slipped between Luke's and his weapon and took hold. Luke tried to regain his grip but the other Force user deflected his attempts, parrying them aside or making the lightsaber slip through Luke's mental fingers as if it had been oiled. Timing had been crucial, Luke would only have had a moment to catch his lightsaber before the guards turned. Now he only had that same moment to glance across to follow the lightsaber's path before he had to attack the guards bare handed and hope to catch them off balance.

Vader felt fresh pride in Luke, even an experienced Jedi of the Old Order might have wasted more time in shock rather than adapting so quickly to the situation, but this pride was buried under his other feelings. Where Luke had felt puzzlement at why his Force grip had slipped and surprise at what he saw Vader felt a rage like he had not felt since Mustafar when he'd thought Padmé had betrayed him. Luke had not understood why or how that black haired woman had diverted his weapon but Vader knew both. Despite the dye disguising her naturally red hair he recognised Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand, and he knew she would not have acted other than on orders from her master. Without Jade's actions, Vader could feel intuitively, Jabba could not have succeeded so the blame was clear.

The Emperor had killed his son and now the Emperor must pay. It would be wise to take a cautious approach, to explore the changes Luke's death had wrought in him, to build his strength and prepare himself. Charging headlong into a confrontation with his former master would have little chance of success…

_'Kriff,' _Vader thought as he surrendered to the inevitable and opened an audio channel to the bridge to order Piett to prepare a shuttle.

=x=x=

Yoda opened his eyes and looked around what had been his home for more than twenty years. Something strange had happened, Luke was dead but somehow the Force was telling Yoda that Luke had fulfilled the role it had written for him. Something had happened, something that meant he did not need to stave off death for a few extra months, maybe a year, in the hope that the other twin could be drawn to him for training. His task was complete.

He could rest, forever sleep, allow himself to become one with the Force and its mysteries. Yoda could feel that transcending the crude matter of his existence was the right thing to do as well as being what he had wanted for many years. Calmly Yoda shuffled across towards his bed, to settle down and wait for the death he had not feared on a personal level for decades. To finally join the other Jedi and feel their presence, and to apologise for how his decisions had led to their deaths.

=x=x=

The doors slid open and Vader stepped into the throne room on the second Death Star, struck afresh by how this resembled the General's Quarters in which Palpatine had supposedly been held hostage on the _Invisible Hand_. Like then Palpatine was alone and unguarded, unlike then Vader knew that did not make him vulnerable as he knew Palpatine for the Sith Master he was.

"I have been expecting you," Palpatine sneered from the shadows of his hood, adding when he felt Vader's slight surprise, "you did not truly think _you_ could succeed in hiding your intentions from _me_?"

"You know why I am here," Vader stated.

"Of course," Palpatine said with a sniff of contempt, "though you have no chance of success. A slave you were born, and a slave you will remain or you will die."

Vader declined a verbal response, instead simply snatching his lightsaber from his belt and throwing it backwards. The blade snapped into existence as it flew and Vader guided it with the Force in a tight arc across the join of the doors, melting and welding them together. As the lightsaber returned though it stopped, it didn't divert and wasn't deflected, it just stopped. One pale withered hand had risen from the arm of the chair and the Emperor had seized it in a Force grip that was as strong as it was lacking in subtlety.

"That," Palpatine chided, "my once apprentice, is the weapon of a Sith. Something you are no longer worthy of."

The grip tightened, metal designed to resist the worst Vader's bionic grip could inflict crumpled like flimsiplast, and with a flash of discharge the power cell ruptured and the lightsaber exploded. Small components and the focussing crystal sprayed from either end of the grip and the Emperor dropped the mangled remains. Vader had not paused to watch this but instead had started forward towards the still seated figure of his enemy.

Almost casually the Emperor made another gesture and Force Lightning crackled across the gap still separating them and into the advancing Vader. Pain ripped through the former Sith as he tried to deflect and absorb the attack as he had the smuggler's blaster bolts on Bespin. Energy crackled across the surface of his skin and his armour and through Vader's prosthetics.

But the critical words were surface and through. Vader had long anticipated this confrontation and had carefully crafted his armour and artificial legs to provide easy paths for energy to follow. It was not as effective as he had hoped but enough of the Emperor's attack flowed harmlessly down into the deckplates for Vader to only be staggered rather than instantly incapacitated.

Vader could feel the pressure building inside him as the energy he was absorbing from the Emperor's attack built up, so he released that into a telekinetic counterattack. Almost any other opponent would have been smashed back and through the window into space but the Emperor had enough power to counter those thrusts and still redouble the intensity of his Force Lightning. There was a muted clanging like metal on metal as air was compressed between Vader's thrusts and the Emperor's shield.

The pain was immense and part of Vader simply wanted to give up, to curl up on the deck and die, but pain was something he lived with every day. It was no stranger and nothing to be feared. He let his pain fuel his rage, if he was to die here then it mattered little if the glimmer of light he had discovered within himself was extinguished again. More lightning flowed into him and Vader launched more and more telekinetic attacks, his preference was a direct attack but now he switched tactics.

Each thrust now came in from a different angle, with a different power, and in different combinations of attack like the darting arms of a demon squid. The Emperor disdained subtlety and simply created a wide shield rather than trying to parry individual thrusts, but however sufficient his power he grew weary of this conflict. If Vader wished to absorb his Force Lightning and throw it back at him then the Emperor saw no need to help him in this.

A tingle of warning gave Vader just enough time to gather his own defences before a massive telekinetic attack slammed into them. As with his defence the Emperor saw no need to be elegant, his attack was a simple direct one but incredibly powerful in its simplicity. Vader barely managed to deflect the incredibly powerful attack, he knew he had little chance of doing more than turning the thrust aside, and deckplates crumpled as they took the diverted impact. The Emperor thrust again and again Vader managed to send this aside to spend itself on the material of the Throne Room. Another attack and yet more metal tore with a screech.

Within the shadows of his hood yellow teeth gleamed as the Emperor smiled in satisfaction and gave a low cackle of glee at finally having a chance to face a personal challenge again. Dominating the Galaxy with your armed forces and political machinations was all very well, but he'd been anticipating this fight for decades. Palpatine smiled again as he sensed how hard pressed Vader was, deflecting his attacks was taking all his former apprentice's power and concentration.

Suddenly Vader took a step forward, the sort of lurching stride he'd not taken since the days following his installation in the suit. Puzzlement creased the Emperor's already deeply wrinkled brow as he tried to sense how this was possible, but then realisation dawned. Vader had programmed his bionics to carry him forward and into striking range. The Emperor felt no desire to see what else Vader had programmed his limbs to do, it was time to end this farce and show Vader how little chance he had truly had.

The attacks ceased and Vader felt a moment of hope that the Emperor was tiring before he felt the shift of focus to behind him. With casual ease the doors he had welded shit ripped free of each other and their frame and thudded to the deck. Almost before the way was clear two Royal Guardsmen, the same two that would have normally been in the throne room, rushed through the doorway and at Vader. For all their speed and training though they were only human, by the time they reached Vader he had turned with surprising agility and was ready for their attack.

One Guardsman swung his bladestaff low at Vader's legs while the other leapt into the air to swing down at Vader's neck and head. His battle with the Emperor had only been brief but it had been very intense and Vader found it hard to gather enough concentration and enough of the Force to do more than anticipate the Guardsmen's attacks and enhance his own speed and strength slightly.

One black gauntlet stabbed upwards and with his Force-enhanced reflexes Vader caught the shaft of the second guards bladestaff before the blade could descend. Simultaneously he stepped forward into the other attack so that impact also came from the shaft rather than the blade of the weapon. As a tactic both would have been unwise for most people as even a Wookie or a Trandoshan would have suffered a broken leg and a shattered hand. Vader's prosthetics were more durable though and there was a muted clang as metal struck the metal within the leather. Even so the power of the blow to his leg was, if nothing else, enough to sweep Vader's feet out from under him.

Vader had anticipated this though and used the extra impetus the blow and his fall gave him to help throw himself to the left. He whipped the bladestaff in his right hand and the Guardsman holding the other end of it around, adding extra power to the momentum of that Guardsman's attack. The Guardsman lost his grip, thudding to the deck and tumbling in a swirl of red robes. Even as his comrade fell however the first Guardsman had continued the motion of his own bladestaff and stabbed the other end down towards Vader's back, which he had exposed in twisting his body.

The bladestaff made contact, but so did the one in Vader's hand and with more effect. Stabbing back past his own body Vader had driven the bladestaff he held into the Guardsman, robbing the Guardsman's attack of power and precision. With a savage motion Vader tore the blade free and the Guardsman collapsed with a hole torn through his armour and abdomen.

As Vader stood so did the second Guardsman, for a moment they faced each other until the Guardsman dove to the attack again. Vader disdained to use the bloodied bladestaff, instead with the speed and precision only the Force could provide he twisted away from the Guards attack and smashed his left gauntlet into his opponent's faceplate. There was a crack as the faceplate, and the Guards neck, broke under the impact. Vader whirled and threw the bladestaff with all his strength and as much of a telekinetic boost as he could manage straight at the Emperor. The blur streaked across the throne room as if the bladestaff had been fired from some cannon.

Suddenly there was no blur, no bladestaff, instead there was a cloud of tiny metal fragments hanging in mid-air. The Emperor took a moment to savour the situation and smile complacently at Vader before the fragments reversed course. Vader felt like he had been caught in a Tatooine sandstorm as the fingernail sized chunks of razor sharp metal pelted against him, scratching his helmet lenses and biting into the padded outer fabric of his armour. He fought the disorientating effect of this barrage, but too late as the control panel on his sternum flattened under an impact powerful enough to break some of his real ribs and bend the metal of his artificial and sparks erupted from his chestplate. Vader flew backwards onto the floor, he coughed and could taste blood in his mask as the backup systems of his respirator tried to compensate and help him breathe again.

"You pathetic fool," the Emperor sneered down at Vader, casually reaching out with the Force to crush the spines of the Guardsmen and kill them for their failure. "You have always been weak, but I am glad that you have weakened enough to care for others. This gives me another way to inflict pain on you for your treachery."

Vader tried to speak, to rage at the Emperor over who had been treacherous to who, to ask what the Emperor expected when he had killed his son, but all he could do was wheeze impotently. Palpatine smiled again, relishing this helplessness before he pressed a button on the arm of his throne.

"Open a channel to the fleet, save for the _Executor_, Moff Jerjerrod," the Emperor commanded.

"Ah, yes my lord," Jerjerrod replied, "channel open."

"Treason has infested even the highest reaches of the Empire," Palpatine began, enjoying the chance to make a speech and watch his captive audience react. "Those who we could consider the most loyal have sought only their own desires, have betrayed the Empire for nothing better than personal motives rather than any greater ideal. This will not be tolerated, all traitors shall be burned out like the disease they are…"

Vader realised what the Emperor intended, how he was going to punish the supposed treachery, and lost a moment in shock and then a moment more in surprise both at his own feelings and surprise that anything the Emperor did could actually still shock him. Vader focussed through the pain and lack of oxygen reaching his ruined lungs through his damaged respirator and cast his mind outwards.

=x=x=

The bridge of the _Executor_ was quiet, Imperial discipline keeping and discussion of Lord Vader's strange behaviour until after the end of the shift. Admiral Piett was dealing with some of the thousand and one routine matters a ship the side of his threw up each day when in mid sentence he faltered. A strange distracted expression came onto his face as he straightened away from the console he'd been leaning down towards.

"Sir?" said the puzzled Lieutenant that Piett had been talking too as Piett's expression changed to one of horror.

"Helmsman, maximum rate yaw to port, clockwise roll, full reverse," Piett shouted, emotion tingeing his voice rather than professional calm.

"Sir?" replied the helmsman, echoing the Lieutenant.

"Now!" Piett snapped.

"Aye sir"

"Engineer, concentrate maximum shields starboard dorsal."

"Aye sir, maximum shields starboard dorsal," confirmed the bridge engineering officer, thankful that the Admiral had given the helm order first so the next set of orders wasn't such a surprise.

The bridge crew had just long enough to wonder what was going on, to wonder if Admiral Piett had cracked, when a brilliant green beam the width of a small starship lit the bridge with its sidescatter. The more alert of the bridge crew realised the Death Star had fired on them, the less alert wondered what was going on as the ship bucked and those not seated and strapped in acquainted themselves with the deck.

The yaw to port had swung the _Executor_ away from the beam, the clockwise roll had reduced their target profile by making them more edge on, and the full reverse had slowed them so the strike was further forward where the ship was narrower. What could have been a direct hit was converted to "only" a graze but to the power of a Death Star the shields Piett had ordered concentrated were as insubstantial as mist. Effortlessly the superlaser beam pierced them and sliced deep into the SSDs hull. A great mile long flaming wound was ripped from the _Executor's_ flank, pushing the whole mighty ship sideways in reaction to the expanding cloud of rapidly condensing vapour that had been solid armour and spaceframe only a fraction of a second before.

All around that wound secondary explosions rippled across the _Executor_ as the tiny fraction of that superheated cloud that had forced its way back into the ship rushed through corridors and passageways. Even as it cooled and the metal vapour re-solidified it was still hotter than a furnace. Doors warped and gave way, decompressing yet more of the ship and letting the fury of the explosion devour yet more of the crew. Walls melted, exposing power conduits that fused and exploded. Turbolaser capacitors and missile magazines over heated and added their destructive force to the devastation.

Piett picked himself up off the deck and looked around the bridge, pleased to see his people already resuming their stations.

"Helm, engineering, prepare for emergency hyperspace," Piett ordered.

The engineer half turned as if to protest, but seeing the look on Piett's face thought better of this and turned back to his console. Damage control reports began to come in, the _Executor's_ crew reacting with impressive speed to the almost totally unexpected attack. Piett felt a moment of pride in his crew, followed by sadness at how many of them must have just died. They had not been on alert so the blast doors, which would have helped contain and minimise the secondary damage, had been open and none of the emergency teams had been prepared.

A Lieutenant, the one Piett had been talking too before all this, offered him a datapad. Piett accepted it and looking at the initial estimate of the damage had to control a wince at how much had been caused by such a glancing blow. They couldn't take another hit like that, and it was unlikely that a second attack could be as nearly evaded. More likely it would be a direct hit and that would be the end of the _Executor_.

=x=x=

The Emperor stared out with hatred at where there was still a Super Star Destroyer where there should be nothing but debris. He had decreed that ship should die so why it hadn't was a mystery until he heard Jerjerrod's justifiably nervous voice stammering an explanation.

"My, my lord," Jerjerrod was saying, "the _Executor_ carried out last moment evasive manoeuvres. We are recharging for a second shot."

The Emperor leaned down towards the audio pickup, an even sourer expression than usual on his ravaged face. "It had better be more on target," he almost snarled.

"Yes, yes my Lord," Jerjerrod replied, his fear of the Emperor waxing higher than ever.

The Emperor though for a moment and then realised that Piett could not have anticipated the attack. He must have been warned and there was only one possibility for who warned him. Not only had his apprentice sought to kill him, and not even for reasons worthy of a Sith, but now he had further defied the desires of his master. This insolence would be intolerable were it not for the fact that he planned to kill Vader slowly anyway. Suddenly the _Executor_ leapt away into hyperspace and the Emperor's rage reached a peak.

"You did this!" the Emperor said accusingly, turning his throne to face back into the room again. Vader declined to reply as having regained some control of his breathing he was too busy crawling away.

The sight of Vader on his hands and knees was sweet to the Emperor and he enjoyed it for a long moment before standing from his throne and bringing his hands up. His fingers curved into claws and Force Lightning again joined them, but this time the Emperor could sense it hurting Vader more. With his injuries and fatigue Vader's ability to absorb or channel the energy of the attack was low and one leg began to spasm as the control circuits failed under the barrage.

"You pitiful wreck," the Emperor sneered, stepping forward to get a better view. "You proved your weakness by wasting your time and energy warning Piett. Crawling is a very appropriate thing for you to be doing, slave."

Vader suddenly dropped from his hands and knees and rolled sideways. Force Lightning crackled harmlessly into the deckplates. The Emperor shifted his aim but before he could resume the assault he saw Vader vanish over the edge of the reactor shaft and plummet out of view. That did not seem survivable but as the Emperor moved cautiously forward, wary of a trap, although he could no longer sense Vader's Force presence neither had he sensed his death. Whether Vader was concealing himself, despite his injuries, or had managed to die quietly the Emperor was not sure but he was not going to assume Vader was dead until they'd found, forensically tested, and then dismembered the body.


	2. Chapter 2

"Captain Antilles?"

With an effort Wedge dragged his attention back to the meeting and away from his private thoughts. Shifting slightly in his seat he met the calm gaze of the leader of the Rebel Alliance Mon Mothma. He hoped she hadn't had to speak more than once to get his attention, but once he'd finished his very minor part of Admiral Ackbar's presentation he'd let his mind wander.

"Yes ma'am?" Wedge asked.

"Has there been any word from Commander Skywalker or Princess Leia?"

Wedge blinked in surprise. He knew Luke as the first of the New Jedi and Leia as the daughter of one of Mon Mothma's oldest allies and a leader in her own right were important to the Rebel Alliance but he hadn't expected their absence to be raised at such a high level meeting. They were discussing a full-scale attack by the majority of the Alliance's fleet on a Death Star and the Emperor, something that could break either the Empire or the Alliance or both. Luke especially was such a nice guy and so modest it was hard to raise him up to such an exalted level of importance.

"No ma'am," Wedge replied, wondering whether to say more.

"Should we be concerned?" Mon Mothma asked, picking up on Wedge's expression.

"I don't know," Wedge said, picking his words with care, "I don't know the details of their plans."

"But?" Mon Mothma pressed.

"But," Wedge admitted, "we should have heard from them. If their plans had hit a delay they'd have let us know. More likely they'd have come back to the fleet, they know what is at stake and… as much as I wish I could have helped rescue Han, Captain Solo, he has been frozen in carbonite for months so another week or two of it wouldn't change things."

"You seem to have given this a lot of thought Captain," Mon Mothma said, a subtle reproof in her tone over the fact he'd been giving a lot of thought during the meeting rather than listening.

"Yes ma'am"

"The situation is intolerable," General Cracken put in suddenly, "possibly the most critical engagement of the Rebellion and we are denied the services of some of our top people."

Wedge stirred, but before he could make a career ending reply Admiral Ackbar placed one restraining flippered hand on Wedge's arm. "Are you suggesting they should have abandoned their friend, General?" Ackbar asked.

"Not at all Admiral," Cracken replied, "in fact quite the opposite. I'm suggesting that had we supplied a commando team or other force to help them secure Captain Solo we would not now be having this discussion."

"You understand the reasons General, Admiral," Mon Mothma turning to Cracken and Ackbar in turn who each made a very similar grumble of agreement despite the species difference. "Let us hope our fears are unjustified, and may the Force be with them as well as us."

Wedge also understood the reasons, though he found them hard to care about compared with the safety of his friends. It was important to not make an enemy of the Hutts by making it an officially supported Alliance operation, both because of the Hutts themselves and how it would affect relations with other fringe elements. The smugglers in particular had become more and more wary as the influence of the Mon Calamari in the Alliance had increased.

That didn't stop Wedge from having a brief and pleasant daydream of landing a Corellian Corvette on Jabba's Palace though.

=x=x=

Vader probed the insides of his right calf with his remaining fingers and the Force, testing, adjusting, tinkering until it felt right or as right as it was going to get without a full rebuild. Experimentally he rotated the foot, he lacked fine control but it would support him and it was past time that he needed to get moving again. Vader pulled the boot back on over the prosthetic, which felt even more like clumsy lump on the end of his flesh than normal, and ran a quick assessment of his state.

The Force told him he was exhausted, injured, and near to collapse. His armour systems told him a similar tale of his mechanical parts. The only part of him, flesh or machine, which was working anywhere near normal was his right hand. Even as he started to fall Vader had realised he would need to keep that relatively intact if he was to have any chance of repairing his other prosthetics. Looking at the mangled wreck that decision had made of his left hand, the bare metal glinting through the shredded gauntlet and all but the thumb and little finger ripped away as he'd dug the strong artificial fingers into the wall of the shaft to slow his fall, Vader did wonder if he'd been right. If using both hands would, by spreading the strain, have prevented either hand from being nearly destroyed or if they'd have both ended up in that condition rather than just his left.

Quietly Vader moved out into the shadows and almost seemed to merge with them. If he stepped too loudly then those that heard dismissed it as unimportant, if he was glimpsed out of the corner of an eye then he was not noticed, if he needed to cross a corridor then somehow nobody was looking that way. The crew of the Death Star knew they should be looking out for Darth Vader, but Darth Vader never crept through the passageways like that. Darth Vader strode down the middle of the corridor, head held high, cloak swirling, respirator announcing his approach and woe to any that did not clear from his path.

Vader seized on that difference and amplified it so that it became almost inconceivable for the two images to be reconciled. As he got closer to his destination though this became increasingly difficult as the security level increased and the minds became more alert and focused. Vader dared not draw too deeply on the Force or the Emperor would sense his location, and he was reluctant to test his newfound balance by dominating minds too strongly. Influencing the easily suggestible was one thing, making those around you puppets of your will was another.

It was with some relief that Vader finally slipped into the hangar bay and behind some crates. The guards at the entrance had not noticed the extra person following the group of technicians, and the technicians had not noticed that their group had grown and then shrunk. He'd needed to skirt the edge of what he could and would do so Vader took a few seconds to run through a mantra, centre himself, and confirm he hadn't made too many ripples. That done he looked across the hangar bay to make his choice.

There were many small ships in different stages of readiness. The easiest to steal would be one of the alert TIEs but, lacking a hyperdrive as they did, that would be pointless unless he planned to hide on the Sanctuary Moon. With orbiting above it an Imperial fleet capable of sterilising the surface, a Death Star capable of fragmenting the entire moon, and an Emperor capable of ordering either action that did not seem like a good plan or destination.

Vader reached out through the Force towards the technicians moving about, soothing their minds with the Force, calming them down so they began to feel bored, began to do their various tasks with only part of their attention. All of this was routine, they'd done this all a hundred times before, nothing to worry about, when does the shift end, what's the mess hall serving today?

Gradually more and more technicians wandered across to work on a Skipray Blastboat. Panels were removed and pre-flight checks made. Deckplates slid to one side so fuel hoses could be extracted and connected to the ship. Life support systems replenished, laser and ion cannons given their initial charge, missile and torpedo launchers examined…

"What are you doing?" a petty officer asked, finally noticing the activity.

The technicians stopped and looked at each other. They looked at the tools in their hands, two of them looked at the repulsorlift pallet they were dragging with concussion missiles on it ready to be loaded. What _were_ they doing? This wasn't the ship they were supposed to be working on. They weren't even all on the same work team so why they'd all been working on the same ship as well as the wrong ship was a mystery.

Before any of them managed to come up with an answer Vader moved. The technicians around the Blastboat collapsed as he used the pathways he'd already established into their minds to render them unconscious. The petty officer turned, one hand scrabbling for his commlink as he saw Vader emerge from behind the crates. There was a thud as a small hand tool launched itself from the deck and into the back of the petty officer's skull and then another as the man joined the others on the deck.

The other technicians who Vader had not been influencing so strongly were already rushing away to escape and he knew he could not deal with them as easily. Three options presented themselves. He could strike them down but that would require him to draw deeply on the Dark Side, revealing his location and tainting his soul again. He could let them escape but that would require him to fight at least the guards outside the door and probably their reinforcements. Or he could reach out with the Force and prevent their escape but, although he could use only the Light Side for this, that would still reveal him to the Emperor.

Door control panels exploded as telekinesis did more precisely what blaster bolts could crudely do. The technicians skidded to a halt, a couple of the faster runners having to twist to only bounce off the unresponsive doors with their shoulders rather than their faces. Vader ignored them as they wasted time in pointless chatter and in hammering their fists on the doors, spending his time instead in seizing a few of their unconscious colleagues with the Force to move them to where they would not be injured in his take off.

As the hatch of the Blastboat sealed Vader could feel the Emperor's mind narrowing its focus towards him, tracking down the scent of his mind now the Emperor knew where to look. Now he was safely sealed away inside the ship some of the braver technicians had moved back a little closer and were peering in at him or examining their friends on the floor. Trusting in the preparations he'd watched the technicians make and in the Force to warn him of danger Vader ran very quickly through the pre-flight sequence. The Skipray lifted, the rear fin rotating to the vertical flight position from the horizontal as the landing gear retracted, and with an exquisitely judged burst of power accelerated across the hangar towards the exit and space.

=x=x=

The Emperor drew himself up straighter on his throne as he felt hints of success colour what he could feel of Vader's mind. His former apprentice was proving troublesome and displaying how much he had learned from his master about the art of subtlety. Palpatine knew he'd have been killed by, or had to kill, Vader long ago if not for the marvellous favour Master Kenobi had done the Sith. An uninjured Vader in his impetuosity and raw power might have moved before he had learned all he should and, by killing his master so early, caused vital knowledge to be lost.

The fact that was no longer a problem, that he'd been able to teach Vader so much thanks to Kenobi giving him the means and ability to control him, was now irritating rather than reassuring though. The techniques Palpatine had used to conceal his power from the Jedi Council, that he had taught Vader to use to conceal himself from the Jedi he was hunting, had proved annoyingly effective even against Palpatine himself.

"Moff Jerjerrod, are you ready?" the Emperor demanded.

"Yes my lord," Jerjerrod replied.

"I want no mistakes this time," the Emperor snarled, cutting the channel before the Moff could reply.

Gazing at the stars with no appreciation of their beauty but just satisfaction their worlds belonged to him the Emperor muttered to himself. "There'll be no escape for you this time my still so young and foolish apprentice."

=x=x=

The Skipray Blastboat streaked from the hangar but, rather than flee direct, it immediately changed course to skim the surface of the Death Star. Hull plating and surface towers blurred beneath and around the fighter until they were replaced by open girderwork. Vader pulled back on the controls to curve away into space, hoping he was right that where so little else was complete so would the tractor beams be. As seconds passed without him being flung forward against his console by a sudden deceleration he knew he could relax slightly.

Of course that still left the problem of the TIEs swarming towards him. Some were dropping down towards the Death Star from the fleet while others were launching from other hangars on the surface of the station. Although durable, well armed, and long ranged the Skipray had the disadvantage of being relatively slow. At least there were no advanced model fighters amongst those moving to intercept, and the majority were standard TIE Fighters with only a few of the faster and more heavily armed Interceptors mixed in.

Vader changed course in what was either the worst piece of flying he had ever done, or was a masterfully unpredictable turn. Smoothness was wonderful for display flying but in this situation he'd rather be wobbly and jerky and harder to anticipate. The navicomputer was working hard on an escape course but it needed more time, which Vader hoped he was about to give it. Ahead of him a Star Destroyer grew as he headed towards it on an erratic course. Laser fire began to hiss around him as the lead TIEs came into range but the Star Destroyer weapons remained quiet.

The Star Destroyer he was approaching did not want to risk hitting the TIEs and the other Star Destroyers did not want to risk hitting it. Using their tractor beams was also a problem. Vader was too close to his chosen Star Destroyer for her tractor beam operators to get a good lock, and too close to her for the other Star Destroyers to grab him without also snagging their friend.

Vader wove across the surface of the Star Destroyer, laser fire zipping past him to paint the shields of the starship with virulent green impact smears. The TIEs' speed advantage was of less use to their pilots flying this close to a ship and they found that even in a Blastboat Vader was an incredibly hard target to hit. With the sheer volume of laser fire pelting down around him like a green Hoth blizzard though Vader couldn't avoid it all, gradually his shields were weakening and this would only get worse as more and more TIEs managed to close with him.

The same manoeuvres that were keeping him alive were also confusing the simple mind of the navicomputer but it was making progress and soon it would be time to make the break for hyperspace.

=x=x=

Deep in the bowels of the Death Star it was quiet and the two gunners were more than a little bored. There had been the excitement of firing the superlaser but that had been near the start of their shift and the excitement had long since worn off. Now they just wanted to get off duty, get something to eat and drink, and find out what it was they'd been shooting at. Even isolated in this duty station as they were the rumour had reached them it had been the _Executor_, but that seemed unlikely and…

"Are you alright?" one gunner asked his friend, noticing the strange expression that had come onto his face.

The gunner did not reply, he just sat bolt upright in his seat rather than comfortably slouching and turned to look at his questioner with an almost mechanical jerkiness. There was a blankness about his eyes and an immobility to his expression that was quite frightening. Suddenly the other gunner felt something moving about inside his skull, his thoughts disconnecting from each other, and the same lack of expression and life came to his face as it had to his friend.

The two gunners leaned forward in their seats and began running through their practised routines. All across the Death Star a similar scene repeated, crew members stiffening and then going into action like automatons. Moff Jerjerrod tried very hard to clamp down on his thoughts, his protest at having his command usurped, as if anyone had a right to do this it was the Emperor. It just hadn't been what he'd expected when the Emperor had said he was going to take personal control to deal with the situation.

For a second time the brilliant green beam linked the Death Star to a Star Destroyer but, where the _Executor_ had mostly survived a grazing impact, the smaller ISD was almost vaporised by the direct hit. The explosion of her own reactors added virtually nothing to the violence of her destruction, instantly she was reduced to a single massive fireball that consumed everything around her and within her. Her crew didn't even have time to realise they were being attacked, let alone get to the escape pods. The TIEs found themselves engulfed by something that for a moment was as hot as the surface of a sun.

As the fireball dispersed and tiny fragments of the very toughest components such as turbolaser barrels and reactor shielding sprayed outward the Emperor's expression became even sourer. It was beneath him to care that he had just personally killed 40 000 loyal servants, but he did care that he still hadn't killed the one disloyal servant he'd been aiming for. A second time Vader had vanished, and a second time the Emperor had not had the pleasure of sensing his death.

=x=x=

Gilad Pellaeon exchanged a look with his Captain as they stood at the front of the bridge of the _Chimaera_. They understood each other, both were men of an older ideal and not long after Pellaeon had been assigned as first officer the Captain had extracted, over drinks, the story of why someone with Pellaeon's skill and experience did not have a command of his own.

The attempt to destroy the _Executor_ was justifiable, if barely, as it was possible that the officers and crew of Lord Vader's personal flagship would be loyal first to him and only then to the Emperor and Empire. The casualties that would have resulted from a fight between the _Executor_ and the rest of the fleet could have been immense. The deaths on the attacking Star Destroyers greater than the number of loyal Imperials that would have survived from the _Executor _rather than being killed by the superlaser strike.

Turning the Death Star's firepower on a loyal ship though was abhorrent. Every member of the Imperial Fleet had made some sacrifice to be there, to serve the Empire, to uphold the rule of law, and enforce the peace. They had offered their oath and their loyalty to the Empire and now that loyalty had been repaid with death. It had been increasingly hard to reconcile the principles the Empire had supposedly been founded on with the atrocities that had been committed but always there had been a plausible explanation. Always these actions could be explained as those of misguided servants rather than those the Emperor would wish.

Having a second Death Star constructed had shaken that idea, but when concerns were raised the Emperor had been effusive in his reassurances that a Death Star under his control would not repeat the madness of Grand Moff Tarkin. That the superlaser was almost an irrelevance, something easier to leave in place in the design than to extract from it, and that the purpose of this new Death Star was to provide a mobile base. Its capacity for millions of troops and millions of tons of supplies and munitions allowing Imperial power to be projected without long vulnerable troop and supply convoys.

Now though the Emperor had shown exactly what a Death Star under his control would do. Moff Jerjerrod would not have dared to take any action without the Emperor's express permission so the chain of responsibility was clear and no longer deniable in where it led.

"Message coming in," reported the CommScan Lieutenant, "we're to move, with the rest of the fleet, to the far side of the Forest Moon."

"Acknowledged," replied the Captain, "helmsman, set your course. Gilad, we need to talk."

Pellaeon nodded and followed his Captain from the bridge, neither of them paying attention to the shifting scene outside as the fleet deployed and neither of them noticing the rather nondescript crewman whose eyes followed them with an intelligence at odds with his menial position.

=x=x=

Fragments of ice hit each other, releasing a glittering spray as they did. Under other circumstances the way these tiny particles reflected and refracted the distant sun's light would have been pretty but Admiral Piett had no attention for such distractions. Whether the _Executor's_ surroundings were attractive or not was irrelevant, what was important was that hiding within this ringed planet's ring would conceal them from long range scans. They were in reduced power mode, as much to expedite repairs as to hide, and Piett did not like either aspect.

To skulk like some Rebel was an insult to the _Executor_, but his ship was grievously wounded and all commands were on alert for them. They had been declared traitors to be fired upon without warning or mercy, had gone from the pride of the fleet to the target of it. Somehow this had something to do with Lord Vader's strange behaviour and his visit to the second Death Star. Piett didn't know what Lord Vader had done, or what he'd have done if Lord Vader had shared his plans with him before his departure, but that seemed the only explanation.

Piett considered the damage and the state of repairs and wondered what to do. His engineers and technicians were good but there were limits to what could be done without the facilities of a full spacedock, and those limits fell far short of what would be needed to let them survive a coordinated fleet assault. It might be better to take the _Executor_ out into Unknown space and trust there were no enemies there as formidable as the Imperial Fleet, carve out a new home for themselves now they could never return to their old ones.

Before anything else though they needed to complete their survey of the damaged areas. A full five-percent of his crew was unaccounted for and they needed to make sure they were not still trapped in sealed compartments. Five-percent did not sound a lot but with a crew of more than a quarter million that was twelve and a half thousand people to mourn or to rescue. Survivors were unlikely, Piett expected the best they'd find were corpses and precious few of those that hadn't been flung into space or incinerated into almost nothing.

This was going to be tough on the crew carrying out the survey but it needed to be done.

=x=x=

Slowly Leia woke, the pain in her bruised and battered body rivalling that in her heart. After they had dragged her away from Jabba he had taken almost as much pleasure in the beating his guards had given her as he had in later telling her with relish how her friends had died. There was some consolation that Jabba had learned this second hand, that even if she had not succeeded in strangling him she had at least prevented him from watching and enjoying the execution.

The obscene slug had done his best to make it sound like it had been easy but Leia had felt the truth behind Jabba's words, even with one eye puffed shut it was easy to see where he was lying. Even with a pain in her head that made it feel it was going to split apart it was easy to notice the discrepancies in his version of events. The result had been the same though, however hard they had fought and however many of Jabba's Guards they had taken with them they had been eventually driven down and into the Sarlacc.

Leia didn't know how she knew they were all dead, how she knew the Sarlacc had simply finished and eaten them rather than divert them alive to its second stomach to be absorbed and psychically fed upon for the thousand years Jabba had threatened, but she did know. Grief for Luke contested in her soul with grief for Han and both contested with guilt that she was feeling so much more grief for them than for Lando or Chewbacca.

There was a slight clatter as Jabba's medical droid approached. Now she had suffered the punishment of the beating and of a night trying to sleep with her pain, with her bruised flesh pressing against the hard cold floor of the audience chamber, she was to be treated. Jabba did not want his prize covered with unsightly bruises, he wanted her to inspire lust rather than pity when he displayed her to his rivals. He had made it clear though that would not stop him from ordering her beaten unconscious and healed as many times as it took to ensure her outward obedience.


	3. Chapter 3

The Sanctuary Moon turned serenely, uncaring of events, the Death Star seeming to hover over the surface as it maintained its position above the surface shield generator. All seemed peaceful, only detailed sensor scans would reveal the diffuse clouds of various materials that had once been tens of thousands of lives and the ships that had sheltered them. The trap was set and like the lush green meadow that was actually quicksand all that remained was for it to engulf the unwary.

There was a blur as hundreds of fighters and dozens of Cruisers and smaller starships reverted from hyperspace and slowed as their speeds had to conform to the 'normal' laws of physics. Ackbar checked his displays and shifted the position of his command chair to make the less accurate but instinctive visual check of his fleet's formation. Everything appeared as planned, no starship was obviously out of position and the fighters were already spreading out ahead to screen the main body of the fleet.

Ackbar listened as the elements of his fleet reported in and confirmed their status. There was something bothering him, something missing, and then he realised what. If the Emperor himself was on this Death Star then how had he travelled here? Would the Emperor have risked his life by travelling all the way here from Coruscant in anything more vulnerable than a Star Destroyer? Would the Emperor have the patience to not require that Star Destroyer remain on station to further carry him the moment he decided to depart?

In the briefing for the commando team they had sent ahead they had told them to only send an abort code if there was a substantial Imperial fleet present, that a few Star Destroyers were to be expected and were not a problem. The absence of even one Star Destroyer patrolling the area against wayward smugglers, who could sell the information of the Death Star's existence and location, or other minor threats was suspicious.

"Rogue Lead," Ackbar said, opening a private channel, "this is _Home One_, what reading on the shield?"

=x=x=

Wedge tapped one finger on the cockpit screen, even though he knew it would have little effect on a well-maintained fighter compared with a cranky freighter. Stubbornly the screen refused to clear or to settle on one set of readings. It was if his sensors were being fed false information, but since this was a surprise attack that was unlikely.

"_Home One_, this is Rogue Lead," Wedge said, realising he'd been so lost in thought he'd not responded instantly to the Supreme Commander of the Alliance Military, "I get no reading."

"You should get some reading at that range," Ackbar replied, "unless they are jamming you?"

"They can't be jamming sir," Wedge said, trying a different sensor band, "they don't know… unless they do! Recommend emergency turn."

"Agreed," Ackbar said, "fighters are yours."

=x=x=

Like spray from a fountain the stream of Rebel fighters broke and curved back on itself. More ponderously the starships began their own turns, the smaller ships restricted to the agility of the larger as they maintained their relative positions. The Imperial ships Ackbar had expected to see, and more, appeared around the curve of the Sanctuary Moon and accelerated to block the Rebel fleet's escape. Two massive groups of Imperial warships pincered in from each side, the groups spreading into curving walls to envelop the smaller fleet in a hemisphere whose base was the moon and the Death Star.

"It's a trap," Ackbar said, thinking aloud before continuing silently _'but why are they trying to trap us, rather than engage? This seems a strangely unaggressive manoeuvre considering their advantages._'

"TIEs coming in Admiral," reported the sensor officer.

"Acknowledged," Ackbar replied, putting aside the puzzle in favour of immediate concerns, "coordinate our fire with the fighters, deploy fleet for anti-fighter defence."

"Aye sir," replied the communications officer.

=x=x=

Wedge's astromech beeped as it displayed the paths the cover fire from the starships would take, and which all friendly fighters should therefore avoid passing through. That was a mixed blessing, the starship fire could be very effective and especially against fighter squadrons still in relatively tight formation but it was also one more thing to keep track of. In a dogfight of the size this was shaping up to be it could be one thing too many for some of the less experienced pilots.

He noted the smaller starships were also moving out to screen the Cruisers against the fighter attack, but not moving so far as to be unable to retreat back into the safety of the main fleet when the Star Destroyers entered firing range and could otherwise start picking them off.

"Rogue lead to Rogue group," Wedge said, contacting Rogue Squadron and the two other X-Wing squadrons under his temporary command, "break high-low on my mark, one squadron pass on the lead Squints then break by flights and engage the Eyeballs and Dupes."

The range dropped. "Mark"

One X-Wing squadron curved up, the other down, while the Rogues stayed on their head to head path with the TIE Interceptors. Each Rogue entered his or her own version of the "Weave", spiralling and rolling around their base course, but somehow their different versions meshed so the squadron never lost coordination. Green laser fire began to spill from the Imperial fighters quad cannon, the Rogues holding their own fire to avoid startling the enemy pilots into starting their own evasion.

Then Imperial fighters were exploding as the crossfire of ninety-six heavy cannon took effect on their formation. The Rogues began to add their own fire to that of the other two squadrons, a less intense fire since they were more scattered and still having to evade but a more accurate one. X-Wings and TIE Interceptors hurtled past each other and then the chaos descended as the formations dissolved into dozens of individual fights.

=x=x=

The Rebel commando team glanced upwards as they heard the shift in the conversation of the Imperials around them. It was hard to hear words, distorted as the voices were by the helmets, but there was a definite note of excitement and satisfaction in the chatter.

"Eyes down Rebel Scum!" one of their guards said with enjoyment, it was something he knew he'd never tire of saying, gesturing with his blaster carbine.

The commandos obeyed, the corpses of their less obedient comrades had shown them these Imperials were happy for any excuse to reduce the number of prisoners they had to spend time and effort on guarding. They had seen enough, they had seen the flashes of laser and turbolaser fire in the sky, they knew the Alliance fleet had arrived, and they knew they had utterly failed.

With the number of troops the Empire had deployed in and around the shield generator though they didn't see how they could have succeeded. A legion of Stormtroopers and Scoutroopers with at least one AT-AT and several AT-STs versus a single commando squad? To destroy the shield generator under those circumstances would have taken a regiment, and where they could have found that level of help on this Forest Moon none of them could imagine.

In the undergrowth an Ewok watched with interest, wondering if the corpses would be left behind and if he could convincingly pretend that he had killed one of them to provide the tribe with one of their favourite meats. The flavour was not as good if it was already dead when you started cooking it, but it would still impress the females.

=x=x=

The fighters swirled around the Rebel fleet and the Emperor smiled as the hemisphere of Imperial ships closed and completed his trap. For a moment he almost wished he had not sent his Hand to eradicate young Skywalker. This victory would be even more complete if his vision had come true and he had been able to savour the "hero's" despair as he watched the Rebellion end in fire. He would still be able to appreciate the wonderful death he was about to order bestowed upon so many, but it would not be the same.

"Moff Jerjerrod," the Emperor said slowly, "you may fire when ready."

There was a pause, which heightened the Emperor's anticipation, and then the brilliant green beam flashed outwards again. A Rebel Cruiser vanished with as little difficulty and as much abruptness as the Star Destroyer had before. The Emperor closed his eyes in satisfaction as he felt the surprise and horror spread through the Rebel forces, their distress was sweet music to the Dark Side.

=x=x=

"All craft prepare to retreat," Ackbar ordered over the command channel as the remains of what had been the _Liberty_ dispersed, "Navigation, get me an escape route."

"Aye sir," replied the officer, diagrams of enemy deployments and gravity wells flashing across his screen as he explored their increasingly unattractive and limited options.

Ackbar cleared his mind of irritation, he'd seen the enemy fleet closing into their englobement formation but he hadn't realised what they were planning. If the Imperials had wanted to disperse their forces over such a wide area he had been happy to let them. His own ships were still concentrated in a tight mutually supportive battle line, but that very tightness now made them vulnerable as it placed more of them within the Death Star's firing arc. Too late he had realised the wall the Imperials were forming with their ships was not a wall, it was an anvil for the Death Star to hammer against.

"Sir, all our options are bad," the navigator reported after what seemed like an age but was under a minute, "but I'd recommend this route. It's not the most direct but it will allow us to build up more speed and try to minimise the time we spend fighting Star Destroyers."

Ackbar nodded, at close range they wouldn't last long against those enemy Star Destroyers. Mon Calamari ships were tough but the Star Destroyers were larger, more heavily armed and armoured, and were purpose designed warships rather than being based on "illegally" modified civilian designs. Then again however little time they'd last against the Star Destroyers it would be longer than against that Death Star, and if they moved fast the few Imperial ships that could block them would be outgunned.

=x=x=

Pellaeon watched as the Rebel fleet rapidly approached. Whatever their Admiral hoped they were not going to escape without being severely mauled, despite the impressive co-ordination of their turn and their maintaining near perfect formation. The Imperial Fleet was heir to the traditions of all the services that had been combined into it and the new ones forged while it was fighting Separatists as the fleet of the Republic. Whatever the Rebels could do they could match and like water beading into a droplet the wall of Star Destroyers had thickened ahead of the Rebels. The closer they got the smaller the area within which the two fleets would meet became and the more the Imperial fleet could shift position to concentrate.

Fighters were already killing each other between the two fleets and Pellaeon was feeling unaccustomedly uncertain of what to do. The Rebels would grant the _Chimaera_ no special favours even if they knew of the doubts the Emperor's actions had awoken, if the _Chimaera_ was to survive they would have to fight as hard as possible. But, even if the Rebels were traitors fighting for the restoration of a Republic that had become a byword for self-interest and corruption, did they really want to kill them? However unconvincing Pellaeon, being old enough to remember, found their idealised propaganda version of events the more enemies the Emperor had the more chance their plan had of success.

"I think there is an opportunity here," the _Chimaera's_ Captain mused.

"Are you sure?" Pellaeon asked, turning more to face him.

"No," the Captain admitted, "but we are going to take it anyway. CommScan, transmit code _Ulic_. Helmsman, sixty second countdown."

The history of the Jedi had not recently been considered a fit subject to study so how many of the younger crewmen, who had come of age under the Empire, knew the story behind the code word was unclear. They did know what they needed to do though and they set to their preparations with a will. CommScan was confirming the code had been received and coordinating the countdown, Helm and Navigation were entering commands while Engineering diverted the requisite power, and from behind him Pellaeon heard an out of place noise. For a moment, a moment he would regret for a long time, Pellaeon felt nothing but mild puzzlement until this was replaced by alarm as he realised a possible explanation for the sound of metal on leather.

=x=x=

Ackbar fretted as his fleet grew closer to the Imperial blockade. The Imperials lacked flexibility, they followed established procedures and instructions rather than react with more inventiveness, and this had let the Rebellion outmanoeuvre them on many occasions. Give them a more clear cut tactical problem though and that very lack of flexibility could become an asset, when they knew what to do they did it with the ease, and speed, of long practice.

As they had drawn away from the Death Star it had continued to fire, they had lost more Cruisers including _Home One's_ sister ship, but at least that had stopped. Engaging a well-positioned unbroken fleet of Star Destroyers would be just as deadly though, even if that fleet's combined tonnage was dwarfed by that of the uncompleted Death Star. In a way Ackbar was glad the Empire had invested so much time and effort in building another Death Star, however difficult it would be to kill it would be easier than facing the hundreds of Star Destroyers that could have been built instead.

There was little Ackbar thought he could do now but ride his flagship into the flames and trust in his people to carry on through, to not falter under the assault and in faltering lessen their chances. Even as Ackbar thought this one eye swivelled as he noticed, he couldn't think of a better word, a "twitch" in the smoothness of the Imperial fleet. The perfection of their coordination wavered, and then several Star Destroyers actually broke formation. As Ackbar watched in disbelief they turned in unison and entered hyperspace with a swiftness that showed this was a pre-arranged manoeuvre.

This seemed so inexplicable that all Ackbar's instincts screamed suspicion. The withdrawal had opened gaps in the Imperial fleet, weakened the crossfire Rebel ships passing through those sectors would suffer, and there was one place where that might be enough to be significant. A few seconds of rapid thought failed to come up with any reason why those Star Destroyers would be better used for any other purpose then remaining where they had been. There seemed no advantage to the Imperials in the manoeuvre, and it seemed to have been as unexpected to their commanders as it had to Ackbar.

_'Flexibility,' _Ackbar thought, appreciating the disarray the Imperials were falling into as they tried to close up the gaps. "Helm, change course to 320 mark 30, maximum speed," he ordered, "I want a fighter strike on the following targets…"

=x=x=

As Wedge shifted position he grimaced at the smell of the sweaty air that wafted up from the collar of his flightsuit at this movement. For all the losses the Imperial TIEs had suffered there had never seemed any slackening of the intensity of the dogfighting since the first shot had been fired. Wedge could feel his reactions beginning to slow, could feel his hands beginning to cramp up on the controls, could feel the effects of the unrelenting concentration begin to take their toll. Normally you had a moment to relax during a mission, but this was far from normal.

Wedge checked Rogue Group's status, forcing down his grief at the missing pilots, and switched modes on his targeting computer as their assigned Star Destroyer came into range. The mixed group of Y-Wings and B-Wings, cobbled together from the remains of other bomber groups, they were protecting salvoed their torpedoes and then changed course directly for their escorts.

"Rogue Group, break one," Wedge ordered, bringing his X-Wing around into a head to head pass with a trio of B-Wings.

The other X-Wings did the same, the enemy TIEs taking the opportunity to drop in on their tails but then, if lucky, having to go evasive as the Alliance bombers opened fire. Red and blue laser and ion cannon fire streaked past Wedge at his attacker as he approached and then passed the B-Wings. Y-Wings rolled to fly inverted relative to each other, not all of them were the two man variant with a movable dorsal turret but those that were could cover their wingman's underside and those that weren't the Imperials would have to treat with the same caution as if they were.

Bombers were not designed to fight fighters for long, but they could still be dangerous foes and it would take the TIEs some time to wear down their shields. With luck that time would be more than long enough. The X-Wings moved into formation, determined to show they could fly as precisely as any Imperial or, more to the point, as any Y-Wing or B-Wing jockey.

"Feeding targeting information," Wedge said, letting his focus narrow to his screens, "fire on my mark. Three, Two, One… _mark!_"

Wedge's X-Wing jolted slightly in reaction as a pair of torpedoes hurled themselves from the tubes under its long nose. Their drive trails were almost lost among those of dozens of other torpedoes charging in to compound the damage done by the bomber salvo. The effect was quite spectacular but there was no time to waste in watching the barrage's progress.

"Good shooting Rogue Group," Wedge continued, "break two."

Matching action to words Wedge brought his X-Wing around and back towards the embattled bombers. There was a pair of determined looking TIE Interceptors harrying a lone B-Wing so Wedge settled his sights in on them, hoping they were as fixated on their target as they looked. The first quad-burst from Wedge's cannon was a clean miss but the second punched a pair of holes through one Squint's lower port panel, sending it wobbling out of position as the pilot fought to regain control. Seeing this Wedge shifted target to the other Interceptor, which was still burning away at the B-Wing's shields. For a few moments Wedge held his fire, letting himself fall into the rhythm of the other pilot's manoeuvring, and then the unshielded TIE disintegrated as Wedge's third quad-burst sent three heavy laser bolts straight through its ball like fuselage.

Wedge's astromech beeped in congratulation, adding, a moment later, a whistle as it scrolled fresh text onto the screens. Wedge glanced down to absently note the success of Rogue Group's salvo, but his main concern for the moment was doing to the intact TIE Interceptor what he had done to the other.

=x=x=

The torpedoes hurtled in at the Star Destroyer in two almost simultaneous strikes. The first few were more than enough to collapse the weak shields that were all the Imperials had been able to bring up over the damaged areas. The rest, arriving a split second later, widened the holes in the armour or plunged down through the holes the bomber salvo had torn and exploded within the ship. Atmosphere vented as decks and walls split, but internal partitions and blast doors greatly limited the affected area.

Then turbolaser fire began to snap in as the Alliance starships entered firing range. At that range had the Star Destroyer's shields and armour been intact these would have been almost wasted but without that protection the distance-weakened bolts were able to burn into the weaker innards of their target. As the wounds were chewed deeper and deeper the Star Destroyer began to lose power, its remaining shields fluctuating and its weapons falling silent. Something exploded, sending a gush of fire out through some of the holes, and the Star Destroyer began to drift.

Another Star Destroyer hadn't even been that fortunate. One explosion fed another until the ship's structure could take no more and it broke apart. Escape pods began to eject from the larger portions as the pieces of ship tumbled away from each other.

Under other circumstances the destruction or crippling of several Imperial Star Destroyers might have been hailed as a major triumph. Entire operations had been carried out by the Rebellion with less damage as their aim. As it stood it was almost an irrelevance, a minor success on the way to trying to salvage a disaster. The other Imperial starships opened fire and even _Home One_ jolted under the impacts despite her size and shielding.

Calamari Cruisers began to lose their shields. The Alliance fleet actually had a slight edge in the number of capital ships that could engage but, with the exception of _Home One_ and her sisters, their ships were much smaller and weaker shielded. Fortunately they were also faster and this was probably the better trait to have when escape through a gauntlet of fire was the aim.

A Nebulon-B Frigate splintered as a few stray shots sliced into the long spar of its central section. The engines burned brightly as their thrust bent the entire ship like a twig into an increasingly less shallow U shape. For a moment the Frigate began to spin as the now off-centre thrust took effect but then its abused fabric finally gave way, letting the engines and forward pod go their separate ways.

TIE Bombers began to launch from one of the Star Destroyers for a point-blank assault. At that range the Imperial pilots would be able to dumb-fire their torpedoes and without the signature of active guidance systems those torpedoes would be much more difficult to destroy. A Corellian Corvette shifted position, moving outside the protection of the Cruisers to interpose itself between them and the bombers. Its lasers and turbolasers struck out at the TIEs but its success served to draw the attention of the Star Destroyer gunners. In barely a heartbeat it was nothing but debris as they avenged their bomber pilots.

Ackbar could see flame erupting from his flagship's hull as her size, more than double the length of an Imperial Star Destroyer, marked her out for special attention and the enemy fire began to penetrate her shields. Incandescent green turbolaser bolts pelted down like rain and with horror he saw one and then another strike home at the base of the fin supporting one of the teardrop shaped pods that were arranged along the upper surface. The pod wobbled for a moment like a loose tooth and then tore free, a stub of the fin still attached to it and a stub still protruding from the Cruiser's hull.

As the pod fell astern Ackbar thought he saw movement in its windows. If the emergency doors had shut it was possible there were survivors, though they'd be restricted to the air they already had. It was hard to not spend precious time speculating on their fate- or on dwelling on how easily it could have been the pod housing the bridge that was severed.

The jolting slowed and then ceased. Ahead of them there were only stars rather than Star Destroyers and Ackbar had a moment to appreciate the peace.

"Sir, we're through," reported the Helmsman, confirming what Ackbar had realised.

"Ships reporting in," added the communications officer, pausing as he listened to the reports, "…all ships report… clear for hyperspace."

"Start the countdown," Ackbar said, "intensify shields aft."

Imperial turbolaser fire hammered the aft sections of the Alliance ships as the Star Destroyers turned. Their sensors had picked up that power was being diverted to their enemy's hyperdrives, so they in turn diverted power. The Imperial's concern was not escape but preventing escape so they diverted power to their weapons, trying to intensify their attack and do enough damage in the brief time they had left to prevent at least some of the Rebel ships from entering hyperspace.

One more Cruiser fell out of formation, explosions wracking its engines, but the rest of the Alliance fleet streaked away. They had left too much blood behind for their liking but, even as the wounded Cruiser was finished, far too little blood for the Emperor's taste. Palpatine scowled as he blamed Vader for this as well, if not for his apprentice provoking him the Rebels would have had to face a Super Star Destroyer and somehow he knew the deserters were Vader's fault as well.

=x=x=

Pellaeon looked down at the body of the Palpatinist that had killed his Captain. When he'd realised he was hearing a blaster being drawn he'd shoved the Captain to one side and let the force of his own shove move him as well. The blaster bolt had passed through the space between them, just where the Captain had been standing, and had splattered against the metal between two viewports. With horror Pellaeon had seen the crewman correcting his aim even as a loyal officer drew his own weapon. The Palpatinist had fired moments too soon to be stopped, his blaster bolt striking the Captain in the heart maybe a couple of seconds before one of the trio of hurried shots from the loyal officer hit him in the neck and nearly blew his head off.

The Captains body had been removed with great care and respect a few minutes ago. He'd be given a funeral befitting his status and his honour, a dignified final ceremony for a man Pellaeon was proud to have known. Thinking of this reminded Pellaeon of a task that needed to be done.

"Throw this sack of filth out the nearest airlock," Pellaeon ordered, deciding to not let it befoul the bridge any longer.

"Aye sir," replied the officer whose eye Pellaeon had caught, a certain lack of enthusiasm for the task apparent in his voice.

Pellaeon had considered simply dumping the body with the rest of the garbage but on reflection it seemed better to eject it while they were in hyperspace rather than contaminate normal space with its presence.

"What is our status," Pellaeon asked a moment later, dragging his thoughts back to practical matters.

"Lockdown has been successful sir," the security chief reported, "processing areas are being set up for initial screening of loyalties, but we don't have enough interrogation equipment for more than a few."

Pellaeon nodded, that was what he'd expected to hear. He didn't like having to distrust his crew but what had happened on the bridge had given extra weight to this being a necessity for now. He couldn't disagree with the Captain's decision to take the opportunity, but this would have been a lot simpler if they'd had more time to prepare and investigate the crew before they'd had to commit themselves so irrevocably.


	4. Chapter 4

Piett awoke as he recognised the chiming of his comm. It felt like he had barely fallen asleep but a glance at the chrono showed he had been out for hours. Despite the abruptness of the awakening he did feel more alert now than he had before he'd been driven from the bridge by gentle reassurances that everything was under control, his officers had been right that he needed rest. One hard blink drove the sleep from his eyes as he reached out and thumbed his comm on.

"Piett," he said.

"Admiral, CommScan here," came the reply, "we're picking up something, could be a small ship."

"Acknowledged," Piett said, "keep tracking it. I'll be on the bridge shortly."

Minutes later Piett strode onto the bridge, nothing about his demeanour or appearance showing he'd been soundly sleeping so short a time ago. It took a brave Lieutenant to disturb the sleep of an Admiral and Piett was sure the CommScan officer would not have done so without good reason. He was an experienced officer, he'd have neither raised a false alarm stupidly nor wasted too much time on pointless checking and rechecking of the data while dithering over giving the alert.

"Show me," Piett said, as the CommScan Lieutenant straightened to attention.

"There sir," the Lieutenant said, pointing at the screen past the operator's shoulder. "It keeps sliding behind chunks of ring ice, and not coming out where we expect, but definite metal and energy readings."

Piett nodded as he watched the replay. If that was some natural phenomena then it was doing a good job of pretending to be a scout ship.

"Gunnery officer, do _not_ power weapons yet," Piett ordered, turning away from the screen, "but be ready to do so on my command."

"Aye sir."

"There it is again sir," CommScan exclaimed.

Piett turned back to the screen where the reading was just vanishing. The operator anticipated Piett's wishes and replayed the crucial seconds. Piett felt certain this was a small ship playing sneak-and-hide with them, but the question was what to do. With the density of the ring the manoeuvrability of the smaller craft would be severely limited. It would have little chance of evading the _Executor's_ fire and the same icy chunks and particles that would hinder it would provide little hindrance to the passage of the turbolaser bolts.

The problem was that the _Executor's_ sensors were as hampered looking out of the ring as any other ship's sensors were looking in. For all Piett knew there could be an entire fleet in the outside system, a fleet just waiting for the _Executor_ to reveal herself and the energy of a turbolaser barrage against the scout ship would do just that. They'd be able to carry out a blanket barrage of the general area before the _Executor _would be able to get clear and without coming close enough for the _Executor_ to be able to target them to return fire.

If they let the scout ship go though then their location would be even more compromised. Once the scout got clear of the ring it would be able to contact any ships in the system or even hyperspace away if there were not actually any ships within range. However it would take time for the scout to get clear, time in which the _Executor_ could shift position rather than being vulnerable to an immediate attack.

It all depended on whether there were enemy ships in the system to witness the weapons fire. If there were then it would be better to let the scout escape and report and take the few minutes this would require. If not then it would be better to kill the scout now and use the longer time it would take for the scout's commanders to realise it was missing.

"Sir, incoming communication," said a communications officer, a strange look on his face, "it's Lord Vader."

"Put it through," Piett confirmed.

"Admiral, requesting permission to land," Vader's distinctive tones said.

For a moment Piett hovered on the edge of ordering the Gunnery officer to fire. This was all Vader's fault, his actions had led to thousands of Piett's crew dying, to them being made outlaw, and if standard procedure was being followed to the arrest or execution of all their families. Killing Vader would avenge these wrongs and, more importantly, although the dead would remain dead might reverse the other two consequences.

But no, the Emperor would never believe it. Even if he accepted it at first, which Piett didn't think likely, he'd always be watching for evidence it was a trick. However much the _Executor's_ crew tried to show their loyalty Ysanne Isard would see plots where there were none and in her paranoid inventiveness provide the Emperor with the evidence he wanted. It would be a slower death than if the superlaser had hit them more squarely, thousands of executions over weeks or even months rather than instant annihilation, but it would be no less certain a death.

They would have a better chance with Vader than without him, and Piett admitted to himself that he was only alive to be making this decision because Vader had somehow managed to warn him. They owed Vader enough for that to at least listen to him. Vader owed them enough though, and Piett owed the dead enough, that he intended to get an explanation even if it cost him his life.

=x=x=

With the skill being a Senator and the daughter of a Senator had given her Leia gave a charming but totally insincere smile to the latest of Jabba's visitors. The Hutt was proud of his new toy and when a visitor did not recognise her Jabba was quick to point out who she was. As the man leered appreciatively at her Leia felt the colder calculating part of her mind working behind her embarrassment on judging the situation.

It seemed the Hutt was being short sighted, a trait that many of his species possessed despite their lengthy lifespan. However impressive it was in the short term to be able to say to the Galaxy "Look, I am so powerful I do not fear the Rebels. So rich I do not need the ransom they would pay, or the reward I could get from the Empire" something more than her political judgement told her this would cause Jabba pain eventually. Whether it was her powerful friends in the Alliance or her even more powerful enemies in the Empire they would come and Jabba would learn just how insignificant his wealth and power really was.

Leia heard the man start to bargain with Jabba and heard what he was bargaining for. Her smile remained in place but her eyes changed as she met the gaze of the man, who faltered in mid sentence. Suddenly trying to pay Jabba for an hour, or an afternoon, alone with Leia seemed more like suicide than pleasure. Jabba, mistaking the reason why his visitor had faltered, gave a great belly laugh of pride at his own bargaining skills as the man swiftly changed the subject to more practical matters.

=x=x=

The Skipray slowly settled to the deck of the near deserted hangar bay and a few moments later Piett saw Vader for the first time since he'd so abruptly left and saw the extent of the damage that had been done to the seemingly invulnerable Sith. One hand looked like it had been jammed in a garbage masher while his chestplate looked like he'd been run over by a Juggernaut. The padded fabric of his armour's other layers was charred and burned as if from dozens of low calibre blaster impacts. His cape was nothing more than a tattered rag.

Some degree of fellow feeling insinuated itself into Piett's mind at this evidence that whatever Vader had been doing he had fought hard to do it and had not escaped his actions unscathed. Who could have done this to Vader though was a mystery, who in the Empire had enough power to do this and was important enough for the Emperor to side with them against his deputy. Memory of one of the rumours surrounding the Emperor stirred before Piett rejected the idea that the Emperor could have done this to Vader personally as simply ludicrous.

"My Lord," Piett said, taking a few steps forward to meet Vader.

"I have renounced those titles," Vader replied firmly. "I am no longer a Darth, no longer a Lord, just Vader."

"As you wish sir," Piett said, unsure of the significance of this declaration but feeling it was important to Vader at least.

"Can the _Executor_ move?" Vader asked.

"Yes my… yes sir," Piett replied, correcting his term of address, "we are badly damaged, speed in normal space has been affected but we are fully hyperspace capable."

"Good," Vader replied, "you are not the only people who could be punished for their association with me, so we need to act."

Vader was sufficiently deep in thought that he took a few steps before realising that Piett was not following. He looked around the hangar bay, at the fact he and Piett were the only people in it where there should be dozens of technicians, and he looked at the nervousness Piett was almost managing to conceal.

"Is there a problem Admiral," Vader rumbled.

"Sir, I must… request, no… demand an explanation of what is going on," Piett said with the tone of one committing suicide, before adding, as if it would have made any difference to the old Vader, "with respect, sir."

From the images burning brightly at the front of Piett's mind Vader could see why the hangar was deserted. If he tried to leave without making that explanation or if he simply started choking Piett with the Force for his impertinence then all power to the hangar would be shut down. All power including that keeping the magnetic containment field across the entrance up and thus keeping the air in.

Despite Piett's precautions this would not have been enough against the power of the Force, especially since Vader had no exposed skin to be affected by vacuum and his armour could supply air for a short time. So the Admiral was fortunate. Had Vader still been as vengeful this would only have sealed Piett's own death, whether at Vader's hands or as he was swept into space by the out-rushing air, and the death of all those involved in the plan.

"Certainly Admiral," Vader replied calmly, wondering where to start. He was amused a little at Piett's obvious relief, but also saddened by it as it underlined the gulf between what he felt like doing now and what he would have done before.

=x=x=

The Emperor brooded in the power of the Dark Side, letting it sustain and restore him. Letting his appreciation of his own mastery and power give him confidence despite his losses and the failure of his carefully crafted trap. The Throne Room seemed dim as Palpatine drew the darkness into it and into himself. With displeasure he heard a muted chiming from within the arm of his throne and realised someone was presuming to disturb him.

"Speak," the Emperor said, opening the channel.

"My… your majesty," a voice replied, giving the Emperor some small satisfaction with its nervousness, "there is an incoming holonet transmission for you."

"Then put it through," the Emperor said, swivelling his throne to face the holograph pad.

There was a brief pause and then a kneeling figure in military uniform appeared above the pad. The Emperor watched the figure for a few seconds, hoping that this Governor would make the mistake of showing impatience. This was not as amusing as he had hoped, to gain any pleasure from toying with someone you had to have something more than complete contempt for them. Compared with how he had manipulated "The Chosen One" anything else paled.

"Speak," the Emperor said again, seeing no need to say more.

The figure raised his head, though fortunately for him he remained kneeling rather than presuming to rise when the Emperor had not given permission. He looked familiar and a small use of the Force, an adaptation of a Jedi technique, allowed Palpatine to enhance his memory enough to recall the details of this particular plot from among so many.

"Your majesty, we are under attack," reported the Governor, "our defensive forces are heavily outnumbered and outgunned. On behalf of my system, which I govern in your name, I would like to request immediate assistance…"

As the Governor continued to speak and add details Palpatine almost began to ignore him. The Dark Side was whispering to him as this minion spoke, telling him that although it would be simple to crush this attack that there was more to gained than a military victory. That as well as punishing the treachery of those erstwhile allies it might also provide means to punish other traitors.

=x=x=

"…And we estimate at least three months spacedock time, though that could be cut to two if we carry out some repairs while putting the ship back into limited service."

Mon Mothma nodded, her face had grown more drawn and strained as the litany of losses had gone on. The Rebellion would survive this disaster but part of what made the difference between them and the Empire was that every death felt like one too many. When thousands died it hurt badly, and when this was because the leadership had been manipulated the pain was even greater.

"Is there anything else to add?" Mon Mothma forced herself to ask.

"Only to reiterate my puzzlement at the withdrawal of those Star Destroyers," Admiral Ackbar said, "and my suggestion that this be investigated further."

"Our intelligence sources are not as good as we thought Admiral," Mon Mothma replied, sadness at how many Bothans had died for the false information edging her voice, "but if you think it is a mystery that bears investigation?"

"I do," Ackbar stated firmly.

"Then it will be seen to," Mon Mothma said. "Now, do we have a plan for moving beyond this defeat?"

"Not a good one," Ackbar admitted, "but one that could work, from a military point of view."

"Please," Mon Mothma invited, one hand gesturing to the desktop holo-emitter in invitation.

"The Death Star can destroy any ship it has a line of sight to," Ackbar said, bringing up a small version of the diagram they had all seen in the briefing room before the battle. "However its dependence on a surface shield generator requires it to maintain position above the same hemisphere of the Forest Moon at all times. With precise navigation it may be possible to slip an attack force in close enough to the Moon that this blocks the Death Star from being able to fire at them."

"How then do you propose to attack the Death Star?" Mon Mothma asked, as additional information appeared on the diagram, the shadow the Forest Moon cast in the Death Star's field of fire and the icons of cruisers hovering within that shadow.

"Indirectly," Ackbar replied, delaying as he knew Mon Mothma would not like this but feeling obliged as a military officer to lay out all the possibilities. "If we can bring sufficient Cruisers to do enough damage before the Imperial Fleet can engage, or if we ram a Cruiser into the Forest Moon, this would cause immense seismic disturbances. These moonquakes and the firestorm caused by the superheating of the atmosphere would be enough to destroy the shield generator and leave the Death Star open to attack…"

"You do realise," Mon Mothma interrupted, her voice even more icy than Ackbar had feared, "that is an inhabited world. Are you seriously suggesting we carry out such a genocidal atrocity?"

"If we let this Death Star be completed then more worlds may suffer the fate of Alderaan…" Ackbar began. He knew he was not going to convince the leader of the Rebellion, and he knew that he had never expected to, but he still felt compelled to play out the argument to the bitter end.

"Enough," Mon Mothma interrupted again. "We will not balance millions of lives against each other as if they were counters in some game. Is that understood Admiral?"

"Yes ma'am," Ackbar acknowledged.

"Now if there is nothing else," Mon Mothma said, pausing for replies and then continuing, "then you are all dismissed."

Ackbar left the meeting room a little hurriedly before anyone could press him on his proposal. He fully intended to keep that plan updated as the final failsafe until a less bloody solution was devised and he didn't want to have to directly lie. He'd said he'd understood what Mon Mothma was saying, he hadn't said he completely agreed nor that understanding what she was saying would change his mind. To Ackbar's irritation he realised someone had fallen into step with him at his shoulder, but to his relief he realised it was Captain Antilles.

"Yes Captain?" Ackbar asked.

"Can I speak with you sir?" Wedge asked. "Privately."

Ackbar gave a human style nod, he suspected what Antilles wanted to speak about and he'd rather consider that then dwell on the losses or on his emergency plan.


	5. Chapter 5

Laser fire splattered against the bridge deflector shield and Vice Admiral Krennel's metal hand flexed in his anger at this impertinence as the bolts were stopped only meters away from him. This planet's defences were non existent, there were no fighter bases, no surface cannon, and no orbital defence platforms. There was no challenge in the order to execute Base Delta Zero on such an undeveloped dirtball, especially since so little of it was inhabitable even without the continuing efforts of his gunners to reduce that further. No chance here to achieve a victory sufficient to counterbalance the disgrace that sub-human Thrawn had tainted him with when sending him back from the Unknown Regions.

Despite the lack of challenge though things were not going completely smoothly. They'd barely opened fire when suddenly they had come under attack by previously undetected and heavily armed transport craft. These transports couldn't stop the devastation of the planet but neither could they be completely ignored. However minor the damage they'd be able to inflict on the _Reckoning_ it would be it was still more damage than Krennel was willing to accept. Power had needed to be diverted to shields, to light turbolasers, and to sensors to pierce the transports' irritatingly effective stealth systems.

Fire roiled across the planet's surface as another salvo of turbolaser bolts burned into the surface, each bolt vaporising tons of rock to produce overlapping blast fronts of superheated air. The defender's fire pecked at the _Reckoning's_ shields, striking with impressive precision at the weakest point of the shielding over the heavy turbolaser turrets. The _Reckoning's_ light Turbolasers struck back at the transports, spilling one's guts into space but the others went into evasive manoeuvres to gain distance for their next attack run.

Then it all happened again. The heavy turbolasers immolated their next pattern of targets, the defenders made their next attack run, and the light turbolasers returned fire against the defenders. Then it happened again, and again, and each time it happened the planet edged closer to being completely uninhabitable and Krennel grew more annoyed with the defenders. The Emperor had declared their planet dead and it did not behove them to try to defy that edict.

"Sir, we're picking up something," CommScan reported.

Krennel turned to receive the report, but then the _Reckoning_ rocked under a massive impact and, caught off-balance in mid-turn, he went down on one knee despite his unarmed combat training. A fresh hope awoke in his heart as he realised what might have just happened.

=x=x=

The great spearpoint of the _Executor_ dropped out of hyperspace, her intact port battery almost instantly tearing into the smaller Star Destroyer's shields and armour. To bring the heavy turbolaser turrets on both sides of the superstructure to bear on the surface the _Reckoning_ had been orbiting so the planet was "above" her, which meant the _Executor_ at her more distant altitude was "below" her. A pattern of explosions appeared across the _Reckoning's_ belly forming two distinct clusters around the reactor dome and hangar well.

With a howl of celebration that could almost be heard through space the armed transports streaked back into the attack. Joy awoke in the hearts of their crews, the Lord Vader had not abandoned them, his faithful servants, the Noghri. He had not visited them for years, since he had introduced their new master the Grand Admiral, but he had not forgotten them. Together they would triumph!

=x=x=

A quick glance out through the bridge viewports as he stood told Krennel nothing, all he could see was the brown of the planet's previous state and the far more attractive orange of where his turbolasers had struck.

"Report," he snapped.

"SSD _Executor_ bearing 160 by 275…" began the CommScan officer.

"Roll ship," Krennel interrupted, "bring our dorsal weapons to bear and keep our damage away from their guns. Get me a damage report. Power our medium turbolasers, target them and the heavies on _Executor_. Signal for reinforcements."

Krennel ignored the acknowledgements of his crew as he thought. This was an opportunity to be grasped. The rewards of defeating the traitor Sith Lord, or even delaying him enough for other fleet elements to arrive, would be great. He could rise high enough in the Emperor's favour to rival Thrawn, to one day become a Grand Admiral himself and humble the alien as he had humbled him. Redemption and Revenge could be at hand.

"Sir," reported the CommScan officer, with some surprise, "the _Executor_ is already badly damaged."

Krennel glanced at the datapad some subordinate had handed him and nodded. He'd seen no need to share what little information he'd been given with his crew, their task was simply to obey not to know why, but there had been a suggestion the _Executor_ had not escaped its treachery unscathed. There was a great gap in the Super Star Destroyer's armour and the shields along that side were weak as the intact generators outside the damaged area spread their protection thinner to cover the gap. A pang of regret passed across his mind, had his incompetent sensor operators told him sooner what the state of the _Executor_ was he'd have tried for the greater glory and not sent for reinforcements.

"Launch TIE Bombers and escorts," Krennel ordered as his ship rolled enough to bring the Super Star Destroyer into view, "they will sweep around the _Executor_ to attack the damaged area from the other direction. Gunnery officer, open fire. Keep them from reinforcing shields against the TIE Bomber attack."

The _Reckoning's_ turbolasers belched green bolts at the _Executor_, but these were almost lost to sight as they crossed paths with the _Executor's_ second salvo before the two sets of turbolaser fire separated again and continued towards their targets. The _Reckoning_ had fired a moment earlier and Krennel had just enough time to see his attack be absorbed by the _Executor's_ shields before the Super Star Destroyer's fire slammed into his ship and through shields and armour.

Krennel rode the impact as he would have ridden a physical blow, keeping his balance rather than being staggered, and kept his eyes fixed on the enemy. There were fires along the dorsal surface of the _Reckoning_ to match those underneath but Krennel did not care, his ship was simply a sponge to absorb the _Executor's_ fire and if it was consumed in the process then what did that matter? If the TIE Bombers did their job then he'd soon have a new ship, a better ship, and perhaps even the _Executor_ herself if the traitors proved cowardly as well as treacherous and surrendered while their ship was still mostly intact.

=x=x=

Piett felt concern as the first groups of TIEs began to emerge from behind the _Reckoning_, having formed up while still in the shadow of their mothership. The opening barrage had been effective, hitting the enemy before they knew it was coming, but despite Lord Vader's… Vader's… instructions they had not managed to cripple either the reactors or hangars of the enemy ship.

That said simply hitting the ship when the _Executor's _targeting systems had not recovered from the effects of hyperspace would have been impressive so to do significant damage was almost unprecedented. Piett had not been completely sure when Vader had started giving the gunners their instructions when they were still in hyperspace and then, on reversion, ordered them to fire before they could really see what they were firing at. Somehow Vader had known where the enemy ship would be relative to the _Executor_ and therefore where to shoot.

Piett did wonder though, for all the skill this had shown, if Vader had been overconfident in splitting their fire just as he'd been overconfident in rushing to confront the Emperor.

Suppressing those thoughts with an effort, he was not willing to wager his life that Vader was that much more forgiving than Darth Vader had been, Piett turned to face his superior. There had not been time for much repair work to be done to Vader's armour, a replacement chest panel sat with visible gaps between it and the dented chestplate and it was obvious that beneath the replacement gauntlet mechanical fingers were missing.

"Your orders, sir?" Piett asked.

"Are the craft ready to launch?" Vader asked in return.

"Yes sir," Piett replied, wishing again that Vader had managed to clear more pilots as being trustworthy.

"Then proceed," Vader ordered.

Piett turned away and nodded to a waiting officer to pass the orders to the hangar, only to turn back a moment later when Vader spoke again.

"Is there a problem Admiral?" he asked.

"My… sir," Piett replied, almost letting the old honorific slip out in his distraction. "Although analysis of the debris shows the enemy ship cannot have many TIEs left, those transports must have taken a heavy toll on them before our arrival, their strike could pose a danger in our present state."

"Proceed as planned," Vader said calmly, "and open a channel to 'those transports'."

=x=x=

A great chunk of armour and spaceframe tore free from the _Reckoning_ under the _Executor's_ barrage, gladdening the hearts of the Noghri. Almost instantly a group of transports whirled through an attack, making up in accuracy some of what their weapons lacked in power.

Valrahaim felt pride in the younger Noghri warriors and the skill with which they were fighting. Their efforts were worthy of being rewarded with victory rather than being squandered in a defeat as they would have been without the Lord Vader's arrival. Valrahaim was almost as grateful for this service to his warriors as he was that Honoghr was no longer being barraged.

"My Noghri," Lord Vader's voice began, "I have tasks for you to perform…

Valrahaim listened as he evaded yet another clumsy barrage from the enemy warship. They were to be given more reward by being given the honour of guarding their Lord's wounded flank, like brothers in the hunt in the position of utmost trust. They were also to escort the Lord Vader's other servants to the planet to evacuate the Noghri and Valrahaim was not sure which was the more vital task.

Swiftly he apportioned his forces to their jobs, and as expected protests arose.

"We can fight!" mewed a young warrior, his blood running hot with battle and youth.

"So can we all," Valrahaim replied, hoping vaguely no non-Noghri was listening, "which is why you need to go with our Lord's other servants. You must protect the humans from our aged, our infirm, and our children lest they mistakenly slaughter those the Lord Vader has sent to help."

"Aye," replied the warrior, his pride assuaged by the assurance the task was a vital one and the reference to the superiority of Noghri fighting skills.

Valrahaim was not as sure it would be such a one sided slaughter as he had implied, but if the implication would bring happy obedience rather than just obedience then he was willing to make it. While he had given his orders he had been guiding his transport to intercept the TIE Bombers whose lumbering double hull designs were becoming more visible as he and the other transports closed.

Laser fire sliced out from the Noghri ships and through the enemy bombers. Even for a Noghri it was difficult to strike with precision against such relatively small and evading targets, especially as the bomber's escorts began their own distracting attacks. Most of the TIE Bombers that died in the first barrage were simply shot to pieces but here and there greater luck or skill allowed less messy kills.

=x=x=

Krennel's bionic hand began to twitch rather than flex as more and more flame appeared in his view along the upper surface of his ship. The TIE Bomber strike had failed him and so had the crew of the _Reckoning_. They deserved death for this failure and Krennel refused to retreat or stop fighting while his ship had even a single weapon left. He could tell his crew did not understand this, that as more of the _Reckoning_ was consumed by turbolaser fire and explosions they expected him to give the order to abandon ship. Krennel though had not expected them to have the intellect to understand or the determination to accept this if they had understood.

"Sir, weapons are at twenty percent," the gunnery officer reported.

"Keep firing," Krennel replied, crushing the hope in the officer's eyes.

"Damage control reports hull breeches to within metres of main power trunk Six," added the Engineer, "one more hit in that area could sever it."

"Prepare to compensate," Krennel said coldly, ignoring the fact the other power trunks were already overloaded carrying the load of other severed circuits.

"Spaceframe is showing stress," said the helmsman as a groan of metal punctuated his words.

"Maintain manoeuvring," Krennel ordered. His ship was designed to be moved by regularly placed thrusters but many of these had been damaged. Running the surviving thrusters beyond full power to compensate placed unusual patterns of load on the spaceframe, something most commanders would seek to avoid or minimise even if that spaceframe was not already heavily damaged.

There was another jolt of impacts, followed by another flurry of reports.

"Weapons now at sixteen percent…"

"Main power trunk Six severed, redistributing load… feedback into auxiliary reactor, crews are…"

"She's twisting…"

=x=x=

Even with his Force enhanced senses Vader was not sure what happened to the smaller Star Destroyer. He knew he could run the memory back, see whether the impression he'd had that the entire ship had bent before it had exploded was correct, but he also knew how little it mattered. Whether the Imperial Star Destroyer's reactors had detonated first or her structure had crumpled around the wounds the result was the same, they had just killed thousands whose only crime was to still follow the Emperor that Vader had also served until so recently.

The satisfaction of the victory was tainted by these feelings, and for the first time since he'd felt Luke's death Vader missed his previous greater certainty. It made things simpler if your enemy's destruction was something to be savoured and enjoyed rather than something to be regretted. It would have also made things simpler if the Separatists had deployed more living soldiers rather than droids, at least then he'd have his memories of fighting a war as a Jedi against living opposition to draw on as precedent.

As the _Reckoning_ disintegrated into a shower of debris that started falling towards the planet Vader turned to look at Piett, who was looking at the _Executor's _helmsman. The silent message Piett was sending was obvious even without the Force, the lesson of what happened when you manoeuvred a damaged ship too hard had not been lost on the helmsman of the wounded _Executor_.

"Track that debris," Piett said, anticipating Vader's order, "destroy any chunk that poses a danger to the evacuation."

Vader nodded. "What is the status of that?"

"Drop ships have landed sir," Piett replied, "they are beginning deployment."

=x=x=

Colonel Emberton of the 501st Stormtrooper Legion had a moment to think as he watched the AT-ST strut down the ramp. Unit legend had it that they had been the soldiers to follow Vader into the Jedi Temple to suppress the attempted coup, though all the clones that had made up the Legion then were long since dead and the entire operation had been classified. If the 501st had served Vader before there was an Empire then he supposed that was the older loyalty and the one to remain true too, however much his conditioning rebelled against treason.

Emberton looked around and hoped they had not scared away the very civilians they were supposed to be helping. AT-STs and AT-ATs were formidable looking machines and to an untrained eye this would look like an invasion. Even to him, knowing their purpose and knowing how differently he'd be deploying the walkers if he intended them to fight, this landing zone looked like something to avoid rather than head towards.

This was the quickest way to unload the drop ships though. They were designed to land and deploy the equipment onto a planet's surface, trying to do it any other way would be far more difficult. The one good thing about a planet was that it had plenty of space to park things on compared with onboard a ship. With luck they would be able to come back for the equipment rather than needing to abandon it. The evacuation shouldn't take too many trips, the population of such a barren lump of rock could not be too high and even to Emberton it was amazing just how many people could fit in the space required to carry a single AT-AT or even AT-ST.

=x=x=

The last enemy TIE evaporated in the heat of a turbolaser bolt and calm returned to the bridge of the _Executor_. Vader looked upwards in the manner Piett had learned meant he was interpreting a feeling in the Force. There was a pause before Vader looked back down and at Piett.

"You have the bridge Admiral," Vader said, "prepare a shuttle, I am going down to the planet to expedite the evacuation."

"Yes sir," Piett replied, "and these transports? Could they be used to speed matters?"

"Perhaps," Vader said, "but I still sense danger here as well as below. Have them maintain escort positions."

"Yes sir," Piett replied.

=x=x=

The bushes did not even quiver as the small grey forms slipped through them and closer in towards striking range. Hand signals deployed the Noghri to either side and slender daggers were drawn from sheathes. Assessing eyes scanned the scene and planned the order in which death would come. Which Stormtrooper was most vulnerable or isolated, which enemy machine would be best destroyed as a diversion and which should be captured to hold the enemy while their ship was stormed.

Soon, very soon, they could spring and vengeance would be theirs. But first they would allow this shuttle to land so they could capture that as well.

=x=x=

Emberton glanced up as a shuttle came in to land, signalling subtly for a pair of AT-STs to bring their guns to bear in case the IFF signal was a deception. He'd not been informed of any planned arrivals and if someone was to arrive he'd hoped it would be one of the armed transports. It was beginning to feel like sending all those escorts with other detachments could have been a mistake, but Emberton had felt he could handle any diplomacy that was needed where more junior officers could not.

The shuttle landed, its engines whining down as the ramp lowered. Emberton felt some relief at this peaceful landing and more relief as Vader walked down the ramp rather than enemy troops rushing down it. Emberton signalled again that the AT-STs could point their weapons elsewhere, he wasn't sure if he wanted Vader to have noticed or not. Pointing cannons at a Sith Lord, even a lapsed one, was not healthy but then neither was appearing to have failed to take adequate precautions.

"Colonel," Vader said.

"Sir," Emberton replied, inclining his head in respect, "how may I be of service?"

"One moment Colonel," Vader said, looking away from Emberton and towards the perimeter. "You may come out _now_."

Emberton's puzzlement was replaced by shock as from out of bushes, from imperceptible dips in the ground, from seemingly nowhere small grey aliens appeared. His sentries were even more shocked, only their training preventing them from firing reflexively as they found there had been someone almost within arms length of them without them realising. There was a clatter of metal on metal as AT-ST drivers buttoned down their hatches as they dropped down into their seats and, and a whirr of motors as their cannons tracked and the scout walkers straightened.

Then Emberton's shock increased as his mind translated across the species gap what he was seeing. It was always hard to tell with non-humans, their different faces and forms and their different lifespans, but these looked like children with a few old people mixed in. The Emper… Vader's elite had been stalked without realising by the equivalent of this planet's home defence volunteers?

"We greet you," the foremost alien mewed, "our Lord Vader."

Emberton waited for Vader to protest the honorific, the word had come down that he no longer wanted to be called 'Lord', but to his mild surprise Vader let this pass unchallenged.

"I greet you in turn," Vader said, "gather your people, we must leave."

"Can you not protect us?" asked the alien.

"My power is great," replied Vader, slipping into a formal style of speaking, "but the Emperor's is greater for now. We must retreat and seek vengeance when his neck is open to our blade."

"The Lord Vader is wise," said the alien, bowing before turning and moving away.

Emberton blinked as suddenly this detachment of the 501st was alone again. As suddenly as these aliens had appeared now they had vanished. The AT-ST drivers poked their heads back out their hatches and the sentries started looking around themselves suspiciously as they all tried to figure out where these people would appear next. Vader ignored this and after a moment Emberton decided to follow suit and let his non-coms handle restoring calm.

=x=x=

Time was passing, the drop ships had all returned at least once and headed back to the planet for another load of refugees and Admiral Piett was becoming increasingly concerned. He'd agreed to coming here, even if these people were aliens they were people and so worth risking something for. The longer this took though the more likely it was that they would find themselves in another fight and one they were less likely to win. Even with these 'Noggy' for help the _Executor_ was vulnerable.

"Incoming ships," CommScan reported, to Piett's dismay.

"Alert the transports," Piett said, "resume full alert."

"Aye sir."

Seconds of almost unbearable tension passed as Piett waited to find out what they were going to face. If this was something that they could fight then they owed Vader enough that they should fight it. If not then Piett was quite prepared to abandon Vader to whatever fate he had brought down on himself rather than lose the _Executor_ trying to change the unchangeable.

Four Imperial Star Destroyers slid out of hyperspace and began to separate, TIEs spilling from their bellies like eggs from a fish. Piett's eyes moved between them as he thought intensely for a long moment before giving a fractional nod.

"Inform Vader of the situation," Piett said, "tell him I recommend some haste, though we will hold as long as possible."

"Aye sir."

_'Why are they separating?'_ Piett wondered, _'Four Star Destroyers firing from the same direction at the same target would be a challenge for the _Executor's _shields, even if she wasn't wounded… oh.' _With that Piett realised the tactic, it was because the _Executor_ was wounded. Burning though intact shields and armour would require concentrated firepower, but by separating they would ensure at least one Star Destroyer would have a clean shot at the _Executor's _damage.

=x=x=

Admiral Trigit smiled as he saw his fighters and bombers streak ahead of the _Implacable_. With luck they would manage to do enough damage that he wouldn't need to risk his ship, or himself, too greatly. He didn't consider himself a coward but there was little point in gaining the Emperor's gratitude if you weren't alive to enjoy the rewards.

"Sir," reported CommScan, "confirmation that the _Reckoning_ has been destroyed."

Trigit nodded. Whether that psychopath Krennel had escaped, or whether he'd realised he was partially bait in a trap, Trigit didn't care. Krennel had done his job and now it was time for Trigit's more trusted commanders to do theirs.

It had been a risk. The _Reckoning_ would have been able to devastate the planet quickly enough that Krennel might have managed to complete the mission before the _Executor_ arrived. That would have given Krennel all the glory and Trigit none, which would have placed him in a dangerous situation. Thankfully that had not happened, as Trigit had hoped a single ISD had been weak enough opposition that the _Executor_ had engaged rather than avoid battle as it might have done if all five ISDs had been present.

Once the eminently disposable Krennel had either died a hero's death or managed to survive against great odds, either would be good for propaganda, and once Vader had been given enough time to commit himself to the evacuation it had been time to strike. Ahead of the _Implacable_ the first flickers of laser fire began to appear.

=x=x=

As torpedoes and TIEs threw themselves at the _Executor_ they detonated and ruptured against the interweaving web of laser fire the Noghri transports were producing. The fire was so coordinated it was hard for even Piett to remember that it was not being produced by a single ship with all the weapons being linked and controlled by the same director systems. It was almost like a simulation he'd seen of a proposal that more power and tonnage should be devoted to weapons and less to shields and armour.

That proposal had foundered on the fact that however deadly the designs would be against fighters and smaller ships, and however invulnerable they would be to missile or fighter attack, in their weaker protection they would be vulnerable to a capital ship's turbolasers. The same would be true here, once the enemy Star Destroyers reached their firing range and attacked the _Executor_ directly the damage-weakened shields would not be compensated for by the skill of the transport pilots and gunners.

Piett could see that, even had he been minded that way, there was no retreat other than by fighting their way clear. The enemy ships were deliberately trying to pin the _Executor_ against the planet just as she had almost accidentally pinned the _Reckoning_. Their commander was also smart enough to have realised just what an advantage knowing which was his flagship would be to Piett and none of the Star Destroyers were transmitting their ID codes.

"Gunnery officer," Piett ordered after a moment's thought, "target the Star Destroyer high and port, fire when ready."

"Aye sir."

There was a pause while the instructions were given and then the _Executor's_ undamaged port dorsal battery opened fire. Piett looked at the positions of the other enemy ships and considered whether it was worth rolling ship a little to bring more of the port battery to bear, or if this would give the enemy an even better shot at the damaged starboard side. The transports made this an even more complicated decision as if the _Executor_ rolled at maximum they might in doing so sweep the friendly ships from space like some immense food processor mixer blade.

The _Executor_ rocked as the return fire slammed into her shields, the impacts on the weakened areas being especially noticeable. Something seemed strange though and Piett realised what was missing. The enemy Star Destroyer they had targeted was not firing, and was not damaged.

=x=x=

"Maintain your shielding," Trigit ordered, overriding the Star Destroyer captain's protests.

It did not sit well with that ship's captain to be 'skulking' behind his shields. One thing to divert power to your shields but another, in that officer's opinion, to be diverting almost all your weapons power there. Trigit knew though that the damage to the _Executor's_ starboard battery had reduced not only that ships total firepower but also the number of targets it could simultaneously engage. If one or two of his ships made themselves sponges for Piett's fire then they should be able to survive long enough for the other ships to burn though _Executor's _weakened shields.

In some ways though it would be even better if Piett gave into temptation and tried to engage with his starboard battery as well. There were an awful lot of guns missing from that side of his ship so to have a good chance of overwhelming Star Destroyer shields he'd need to roll to give the maximum broadside, but that would give the targeted Star Destroyer a direct shot at the damaged area.

Trigit had no intention of risking the _Implacable_, if his ship was in that situation he would order most of the power diverted to shields. If one of his other ships was in that position though he fully intended that they should try to take the advantage by going to maximum firepower rather than protect themselves. The damage they'd be able to do before the _Executor_ battered them into a wreck might be decisive.

=x=x=

Piett glanced at the datapad with a peevish expression at the lack of progress in dismantling the enemy shields. The cautious approach was not working, they were buying the time he'd said they would for Vader but the longer this went on the better the enemy position was becoming. Boldness had not been a survival trait when working for Darth Vader any more than incompetence had been. The more risks you took the greater the chance one of them would fail and you would suffer at the Dark Lord's hands.

Sometimes though you just had to stop fencing and start hacking, step up to the enemy and drive your knife into his guts and your teeth into his throat. The _Executor_ would take damage, perhaps serious damage in her weakened state, but Piett was confident they could and would obliterate the enemy ships in the process. The problem was that without shipyard facilities for repairs this damage was less affordable, they needed to remain sufficiently intact to still be a difficult opponent and force more elaborate traps.

"Sir," reported CommScan, interupting Piett's thoughts, "additional ships exiting hyperspace. More Star Destroyers bearing…"

Piett listened absently, this was getting dangerous. Even if the _Executor_ had been at peak capacity he'd have been reluctant to fight this many enemies.

"Incoming message sir," continued CommScan, to Piett's surprise.

=x=x=

Pellaeon looked at the embattled _Executor_ and hoped this was the right decision. As allies the information Darth Vader could provide would be as useful as the _Executor's_ firepower but they might have been better used as a diversion. Let the Emperor hunt down the _Executor_ and while he did this Pellaeon's ships could use this time to further their own escape.

It had been a surprise to Pellaeon when the Captains of the other Star Destroyers had not only confirmed their agreement with his taking command of the _Chimaera_ but had turned command of the flotilla over to him as well. He had not realised he was so well known in the fleet or how true the rumours he'd heard that he had been made an example of were. In this new situation though being known as someone who had been punished for placing due process ahead of blindly carrying out orders had been an asset.

None of his ships could launch fighters as they'd left most of their complements at Endor and the few pilots that remained onboard were still being screened for their loyalties. This did not loom large as a problem in Pellaeon's thoughts though as he saw how the enemy ships were deployed. It looked like a sound tactic to prevent the _Executor_ from keeping her wounds away from enemy fire, but it also isolated the enemy Star Destroyers from being able to as easily support each other.

"Identification," Pellaeon said.

"Cross-matching databases," reported the CommScan officer, "results are being made available."

"Good work," Pellaeon commented, glancing down at his datapad where names were beginning to appear.

Having exited hyperspace to the rear of the enemy ships they had a good view of their engine emissions. Something that due to repairs, damage, and modifications by each ships engineering department was always slightly different for each ship. It took a lot of work to match these emission signatures with all those recorded for ships of that class but it was possible.

"Open a channel to the _Executor_," Pellaeon ordered.

"Channel open."

"_Executor_, this is _Chimaera_," Pellaeon said, "we are transmitting targeting information. Recommend you divert your fire to _Implacable_ as enemy flagship. We are moving to assist."

Pellaeon nodded at the CommScan officer who nodded back and cut the channel.

"Give me fleet command channel," Pellaeon requested.

"Open."

"Move and engage the following targets…" Pellaeon continued.

=x=x=

Trigit had hoped that the new Star Destroyers would turn out to be unexpected reinforcements rather than the threat he feared, but their deploying without communicating with him had rather undermined that hope. Three of the enemy ships were moving to engage his other three ships in single ship duels that would keep them busy. The rest of the enemy ships were heading straight for him…

"Sir," reported his CommScan, "_Executor_ is rolling to bring port battery to bear on us."

"Evasive," Trigit said.

"Aye sir," replied the helmsman, doubt apparent in his voice.

Trigit glanced at the relative positions of the _Implacable_ and the enemy and could easily see where the doubt entered. To try to avoid the immense firepower of the Super Star Destroyer's undamaged side by keeping ahead of the roll would drive them towards an interception with the bulk of the enemy ships. It was irritating that Piett, or his helmsman, had had the presence of mind to see this rather than making the shorter roll in the opposite direction.

"Intensify shielding, divert power from weapons," Trigit ordered, "get us through and back to formation."

There was a chorus of acknowledgements that Trigit almost ignored, he wasn't stupid, he knew the situation was hopeless. The crossfire would shred his ship like flimsiplast and even if they survived they would be in no fit state to prevent the _Executor_ from escaping. The Emperor would punish him severely for this failure, however unfair that punishment would be, so there was only one option open. Trigit casually entered a series of special commands into his datapad and then waited for the results.

"Sir," reported the engineering officer, "there is a problem with the bridge command and control systems."

"Rectify it," Trigit ordered.

"Aye sir," reported the engineer, beginning to try to track the cause down.

Trigit waited a moment longer while the engineer worked and then let a look of false resignation onto his face.

"Are the auxiliary feeds still intact?" he asked, knowing the answer.

"Aye sir."

"In that case I'll be in auxiliary control," Trigit said, lying as easily most people breathed before striding from the bridge.

=x=x=

The Star Destroyer writhed like a frightened fish as it tried in its lumbering way to avoid the jaws of the trap but to no avail. Turbolaser fire from Pellaeon's ships pelted the _Implacable's_ shields, which resisted this as Star Destroyers were incredibly tough. But then the _Executor _joined the assault. The shields facing the Super Star Destroyer had not been damaged but to maintain the defences against Pellaeon's fire required the _Implacable_ to have already diverted all their reserve power to those.

Heavy Turbolaser bolts burned through shields and armour and into vulnerable innards. Flame rushed through corridors, metal buckled or burned in as it was superheated, blast-doors crumpled under the strain and let the damage spread. Soon the explosions joined into one single sun bright whole as the _Implacable_ came apart into debris, not so much destroyed as simply melted away like ice on Tatooine under the heat.

"Sir, a single TIE Interceptor launched," reported the _Chimaera's_ CommScan officer with some puzzlement, "it is heading away from us."

"Let me see," Pellaeon commanded, looking down at his datapad.

CommScan was right, there was a single TIE Interceptor and it was heading away from them but at a strangely low speed. Pellaeon thought for a moment before insight struck him. The Emperor was not forgiving and, as Pellaeon had learned from personal experience, had a tendency to seek people to use as examples to the others. Admiral Trigit however had a reputation for being motivated by his own advancement, he sought the solutions which would most improve his own situation rather than the Empire as a whole.

If Pellaeon had to guess, which he did since there was no other way of knowing, he would say that was Trigit in a modified hyperspace capable fighter making his escape and trusting in the destruction of his ship to cast confusion on his status. If the Emperor thought Trigit was dead then he'd not hunt him down.

"Lock a torpedo cluster on that fighter," Pellaeon ordered, "spread barrage, I want it gone. Fire when ready."

"Aye sir," replied the gunnery officer, puzzled at the overkill and why Pellaeon was concerning himself with a single fighter at such a time.

Pellaeon disliked the idea of standing in for the Emperor as executioner but if Trigit had surrendered then he might have saved the lives of his entire crew, and trading their lives for his was not something Pellaeon was willing to tolerate Trigit successfully doing. The _Chimaera_ twitched very slightly as the fifteen torpedoes were expelled. The tight cluster of drive trails became more diffuse as the torpedoes moved away from each other, covering a wider area to block all avenues of escape.

"Set course 60 by 30," Pellaeon continued after studying a moment longer the progress of the single ship duels.

"Aye sir."

As the _Chimaera_ turned Pellaeon watched the progress of the torpedoes, the TIE Interceptor started to weave but too late. A torpedo missed, so did another, and then a third, but the fighter evaded into the path of the fourth. A brilliant explosion flared, made more brilliant as the other torpedoes curved in to add their own fire to the light. When they had all detonated there was nothing to be seen.

=x=x=

Piett smiled as the enemy Star Destroyers began falling back. One had been destroyed and another was venting air from multiple wounds as Pellaeon's ships began to tear it apart. The _Executor's _weapons were firing less intensely as Piett had decided to divert some of their power to ensuring his ship was protected in case one of the enemy Captains had decided to try to snatch some crumb of victory with a self-sacrificing attack. None of them had though.

There was a flash of light as one of the enemy ships entered hyperspace, then another, and then the third as the damaged ship jolted away with less ease than the others. The bridge became very quiet as the constant chatter of battle reports fell silent and Piett allowed himself a sigh of relief before speaking.

"Open a channel to the _Chimaera_," Piett said.

"Channel open," confirmed the CommScan officer.

"_Chimaera_, this is Piett," he said, "what are your intentions?"

"We intend to join you," came the reply, "we can no longer tolerate the Emperor's capricious actions, and seek alliance to our mutual benefit. I assume Lord Vader has already joined you?"

"He has, though he has renounced his titles," Piett replied, "may I ask who I am speaking to?"

"My apologies Admiral," the voice said, "Captain Pellaeon, formerly first officer until a Palpatinist killed our Captain and presently in command of this ship and this group of ships."

"Pellaeon, eh?" Piett said, musing. "Very well Captain. We are evacuating the inhabitants of this planet against reprisal, your assistance would be welcomed if you can launch drop ships to help ferry these people to the _Executor_."

"We will see to it," Pellaeon replied.

=x=x=

The night was dark and cold, made more so by the dust coating the sky that had been thrown up by the _Reckoning's_ bombardment. They had felt lucky to be able to reach escape pods before their ship was destroyed but more and more the survivors from the Star Destroyers were beginning to wonder if that luck had been good or bad. The warmth and light of the fire one of them had started by shorting the power cell of a blaster across some dry wood was pitiful against their surroundings.

There was a slight noise and one half turned, his eyes searching uselessly for the source. Even if his eyes had been completely dark-adapted it was unlikely he'd have seen anything. As it was before his eyes could adapt to the dark of the forest from the light of the fireside he found a knife lodged in his neck. Others managed to stand but soon fell as knives, clubs, fists, and feet found vital spots and they died either instantly or a few moments later as their assailants finished them.

A quiet returned as the Nogri who had not reached the evacuation points looked at their handywork. They knew they were dead, they knew Honoghr was dead, and they knew there was no escape or rescue for them. While they yet lived though they could seek revenge and hunt those that had killed so many of their kind and had finished killing their homeworld.

There was a tiny rustle of movement as the clumsiest Nogri moved with less skill than his silent comrades and they left. At night they had the advantage and with the sun blocked by the dust it would be night for days, more than long enough to complete their task.

=x=x=

Vader looked at his two subordinates, if that was the right word. They were here by choice, Pellaeon especially, so he had no authority over them save what they were willing to allow him. He remembered how he had gained the loyalty of his troops before and he hoped he still had that skill. An important step in this had been removing his death-face helmet, witnessed by Noghri so they could assure their fellows of his identity, and making a visible break with the past. The breathmask he was wearing now was less efficient than the sealed armour, less durable, more vulnerable, but more human.

For now though this was the only change, the rest of his armour was not so easily discarded and it would take some work to refine those systems down and rebuild them into the new image he wanted.

"Gentlemen," Vader said, using the Force to add depth to his voice and keep it similar, "we need to make our plans."

"Yes, sir, we do," Pellaeon replied, his eyes fixed on Vader's and surprise still in his mind that such a gentle face had been hiding beneath the fearsome mask of Darth Vader. "Do you plan to rebel against the Emperor?"

"I plan to kill him," Vader replied simply.

"And then?" asked Pellaeon.

"That is a good question," Vader said, "and one I admit I gave too little thought to before I sought my revenge. I once thought to overthrow and replace Palpatine, before my injuries so severely weakened me. Now though that idea holds little appeal."

"If you simply kill the Emperor the chaos would be immense," Pellaeon pointed out, "without him the Empire would fracture the same way the Republic did and I for one do not want to return to the bloodshed of the Clone Wars. It took years to repair the damage those did, years to destroy the pirate and smuggler cartels that had flourished in the confusion."

"Ah yes, the Clone Wars," Vader said, shutting his eyes in resignation at having to speak the truth. "What do you know about their start and end?"

"Just what's on record sir," Piett replied, deciding to re-enter the conversation, "why?"

"There are truths I have learned," Vader said.

As Vader spoke the expressions on the faces of the two officers went from calm to shock to stunned disbelief.

The idea the wars had started because the same man, Count Dooku, had both ensured the Separatists would continue on their course and that the Republic would have a Clone army to use to try to prevent the secession, rather than having to accept it, was bad enough. The idea that Dooku was doing this under instructions and that the man giving these instructions had been Palpatine was worse. That all those lives had been lost simply to let the Chancellor continue to invoke and expand his emergency wartime powers was abhorrent. That the Jedi had been purged because they had learned this truth when they realised Palpatine was the Sith Lord they had been searching for cast a different light on that period.

Vader was very careful though to skirt around the issue of how long he had known all this. With the insight he had regained he found it hard to believe or accept he had willingly served such evil for so long, so he was reluctant to admit this.

"We still have a problem though," Pellaeon said, after some thought, "even if you told this to some members of our crews it would make no difference. They would either disbelieve you or simply wouldn't care about what this means about their Emperor. They would remain loyal Palpatinists and a danger to us as long as they are onboard our ships."

"There is a solution," Vader replied, "we can deal with them while also striking a personal blow at the Emperor."

Pellaeon and Piett exchanged looks and then looked back at Vader to wait to hear what he meant.


	6. Chapter 6

Palpatine cursed as the datapad in his hand went blank and cursed again as he saw the nimbus of energy around his fingers and realised the cause. The news of the losses his fleet had suffered and of Vader's continuing survival had so angered him this anger had leaked out and destroyed the datapads circuits. A twitch of telekinesis sent the datapad flying and then Palpatine unleashed a long burst of Force Lightning from his other hand, the datapad did not so much thud to the carpet as plop it was so melted by this.

This had calmed Palpatine considerably, it was unhealthy for those around a Sith but quite useful on occasion that you could almost literally release your feelings. Jedi had to mediate and release them into the Force, Palpatine could just destroy something and get back to work. A crooked smile came back to the Emperor's face as he considered the situation more dispassionately.

The core of rage that had made Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader would still beat within his former apprentice. Twenty years had not cured Vader of a tendency towards rash actions either. The trap had been set and in his anger, overconfidence, and determination Vader would rush into it and assume that, as had always been the case before, he would be able to survive it.

Even better the purges were now complete. Director Isard had been most efficient despite her lack of the Force and families, friends, and associates of all the traitors were now nothing but fading memories. Their very existence was now forbidden to recall, they had no graves, and all their wealth had been seized as compensation for the inconvenience of having to mount the operation to kill them.

Things were not bad, the only real problem was whether to have Vader captured alive or killed on the spot.

=x=x=

Wedge still did not feel quite focussed. After the Battle of Endor he had been hoping for good news so to learn from Mirax that Han, Luke, and Chewbacca were all dead had been a real shock. There had apparently been a guard who had tried to help them as well and there was some evidence to suggest that had been Calrissian trying to make up for the fact the situation was so much his fault.

Leia was still alive though and in need of help so it was good that he had finally managed to get a go for his mission. It was volunteers only but there had been no shortage of people willing to risk their lives for the woman who had become more as symbol of the Rebellion to many than even Mon Mothma. Wedge had been quite ruthless in his choices, some of the volunteers were motivated by the romance of rescuing a Princess from an evil slug and Wedge wanted people with a clearer idea of the objectives.

There would be no backup for the mission, they were on their own and couldn't be helped if they ran into trouble even by the volunteers they had left behind. Wedge did not expect there to be any problems, negotiations with a Hutt went a lot faster when you had permission to level his palace with proton torpedoes or ram a grenade down his throat, but it was always the unexpected that vaped your tail.

=x=x=

The maintenance technicians looked very wary as they lifted the corpse into the disposal bag. There was little of the body that was not cratered with blaster wounds but they still seemed to be almost expecting the Noghri to spring back into action even with half his head missing. Even when the disposal bag vacuum sealed itself down around the corpse, moulding itself to its contents, the techs did not relax.

They glanced back at the calm white uniformed figure who gave one small gesture with a blue fingered hand to dismiss them. With continuing reluctance they lifted the bag and began the short journey to the nearest disposal chute to eject it.

Grand Admiral Thrawn watched them go and felt thankful that he had decided those years ago that the Noghri would be of little use to his mission in the Unknown Regions. Rukh had been a superb bodyguard and Thrawn had wondered if he had made a rare mistake in not having more of his ilk to use for situations where subtlety was required. Whatever advantages could have been gained from more Noghri though would have been counteracted by the extra danger more would have posed now.

Even caught unawares, brought into a trap with no indication it was such, Rukh had not been easy to kill. The elite Stormtroopers had been given a perfect crossfire and had managed to fire with such coordination the opening shots sounded like one. Rukh had staggered as the bolts hit him, but had not gone down as he had somehow managed to twist and move so some missed and others hit non-vital areas. With speed barely slowed by his wounds he had sprung towards one of the Stormtroopers, managing to determine in the split second he'd had where one of his assailants was.

Another blaster bolt had burned into him though even as he lept and he was knocked backwards. Then another struck, and another, and yet more as the Stormtroopers made sure of their target. Thrawn had ordered them to empty their power packs into Rukh and they had no problem with obeying this order.

Thrawn rose from his chair where he had sat and watched the whole thing. He had work to do and until the air filters removed the smell of burnt flesh, and until the carpet was replaced where the ruined body had leaked on it, he would rather do that work elsewhere.

=x=x=

It was a very great relief to still be alive, if so many millions of credits poorer. Sate Pestage knew how the Emperor's temper could rule him, and knew that even so long an association with Palpatine would not save him. In fact it would be likely to ensure his death if the Emperor decided that Pestage had been trying to take advantage of those years of service and take advantage of him.

The Emperor had been merciful though, graciously allowing Pestage to agree with the statement that there had been a data-entry problem. Authorisation and activation codes had not been included in Imperial Intelligence's records for that equipment. It was a simple mistake the Emperor was sure rather than any attempt at embezzlement.

Pestage had given his wholehearted assent to this idea and eagerly and immediately supplied the codes required.

=x=x=

There were sounds of muffled cursing from the forest around Colonel Emberton as his troopers carried out their assignment. When Vader had given them the orders to take an Assault Transport and travel to this world they had anticipated a challenge, but aside from some aggressive wildlife which had given one trooper some fresh scars, so far nothing had happened.

It was still frustrating though, these strange tree hugging creatures were not dangerous but Emberton couldn't see why they were of any use either. If they'd been asked to recover some of the animals that had attacked them then that would be understandable, they at least fought. These things though barely even moved and had a tendency to die when being transferred from tree to the support frames they had brought.

=x=x=

Leia sternly controlled the tears that threatened to escape. It was not the sense of foreboding itself that was affecting her as much as that she could almost hear Han or Luke saying _'I've got a bad feeling about this'_. While she had to deal with Jabba and being on display she could focus on that but sometimes in the night her thoughts began to wander.

She was not sure if the _'bad feeling'_ was completely the immediate situation, bad as that was. Jabba's attention span was limited and Leia was not sure how long it would be before he tired of her and let the guards or a visitor do what she could tell they wanted to do to her however much the feeling was not mutual. It would be so simple for them to slip something into her food or drink and for her to wake up chained down somewhere.

There seemed to be more to it though than just fear for herself, there seemed to be something lurking which would strike out at her remaining friends. Whatever was going to happen though Leia knew she needed to be alert to take best advantage of any opportunities. She calmed herself and did her best to draw strength and purpose from that calm. Her father, Bail Organa, had always impressed on her that acting in anger or fear could be initially effective but to be truly effective you needed to be at peace with yourself and your decisions.

=x=x=

Metal fingers worked with a precision that only those same hands as flesh could have surpassed as Vader tinkered with his armour and support systems. He had discarded the gloves for more fine control and, as often happened, found himself torn between pride in how much these prosthetics were improved over the crude claws he'd been given at first and how much he would rather have his real hands back. Strangely the latter wish had not been accompanied by rage over Obi-Wan's actions, with his refreshed insight Vader could see that although Obi-Wan had inflicted the injuries it had been the Emperor who had kept him in the suit.

Some pleasure could be felt in how simple reconfiguring his armour's systems to be more discreet was proving to be, how good a job of refinement he had done over the years, but there was also a feeling of pointlessness to it. However much he could change his appearance to be more like his former self he could not change the fact that his power was so diminished. In a way his flagship and he were in the same situation, for all the skill of the _Executor's_ engineers in making their repairs it still left the ship at a lower capability than before it was burned.

There was a solution to the _Executor's _problems though and the same might apply to Vader himself, though in either case it would render them even more vulnerable for a considerable time and facilities would be hard to find.

=x=x=

Commander Pter Thanas watched as the Star Destroyer group advanced against the Ssi-ruuk, flutie fighters dying in whisps of brilliance as the TIE Fighters swept the space around them. When the Governor had sent his request for help they had not expected such a powerful response, and Thanas had been assigned to Bakura long enough to know some had not hoped for such a response. There had been some civilian elements who would have preferred to have had the fluties defeated but the Empire's grip weakened rather than strengthened.

Ssi-ruuk starships erupted in flames as the Star Destroyer heavy turbolasers smashed them aside to clear a path towards the enemy flagship. The commander of the reinforcements had been polite enough when receiving Thanas' recommendations and reports but he had seemed more concerned with the reports of a human interpreting for the Ssi-ruuk than in the more military aspects. Even as Thanas thought this he could see the Assault Transports detaching from the Star Destroyers and arrowing in at the enemy flagship whose engines were now a solid mass of flames.

With an effort Thanas dragged his mind away from what reason they would have to perform a boarding operation rather than just blowing the ship out of space. The reasons of the Emperor and his higher commanders were their own and curiosity was not something that was encouraged. Far better to keep your head down and be grateful for having still a position of responsibility after all that had occurred.


	7. Chapter 7

Joruus C'Baoth gazed with contempt at the intruders in his palatial home. He had killed the Emperor's guardian and it would be even simpler to kill the Emperor's black masked puppet. That grotesque visage might inspire fear in many but to C'Baoth it simply showed how weak his enemy was. A droid was an abomination that could think but was not part of the Force, so Vader was part abomination and less part of the Force than he had been before. C'Baoth remembered how powerful Padawan Skywalker had been, or at least he thought he did…

A puzzled frown came onto C'Baoth's face as he tried to sort out whether he remembered Anakin Skywalker, or he remembered remembering, or something, and how had he known him. As much to escape these thoughts as to continue the fight C'Baoth gestured again and more Force Lightning streaked across the room and into Vader.

Vader could feel the confusion in his unexpected adversary but he could also feel how C'Baoth's power was rising as his madness and frenzy built. More lightning crackled into him and danced away as it too was deflected, setting small fires in the increasingly battered furniture. In return Vader slammed a telekinetic shockwave into C'Boath, but he was almost unaffected. For that moment C'Boath's clothes flapped as if he was in a high wind but it was only the pulverising of the furniture and wall plaster behind him that showed how strong the shockwave had been.

"You cannot win!" C'Baoth screamed. "I am a Jedi Master, the Force is _my_ ally not yours!"

C'Baoth cast more lightning, some of which got through and burned a hole in Vader's cloak.

"You are weak!"

More lightning, the blue of it becoming closer to white as the intensity increased.

"A cripple propped up by droid parts!"

The barrage became continuous as C'Baoth poured out all his hatred of droids, all his anger at the intrusion, all his pride at how he had been ruling these people, and all his despair at knowing somewhere in his soul he was not who he thought he was. Vader erected a shield around himself, this took a lot of power and concentration but he needed to think for a moment. He had taken precautions as he had expected to have to fight a Dark Jedi given what he had heard about there being a Guardian but in his heart he hadn't expected to need those precautions.

This C'Baoth's madness made him difficult to fight, difficult to anticipate or trick, but Vader was thankful that it was a mad clone. He had met the real C'Baoth and the Jedi Master had made quite an impression. Even these decades later it was obvious to Vader that this was not the real C'Boath and remembering C'Baoth's power and focus and confidence it was equally obvious that it would have been a much harder fight if it had been.

Vader's shield twitched, almost letting some lightning through, as he wondered about why the Emperor, or Supreme Chancellor as he was then, had gone to the trouble of removing Padawan Skywalker from the Outbound Flight mission… a mission which then vanished without trace, removing several Jedi Knights and Masters. This was hardly the time to think about it though. He was confident he could defeat this madman without assistance but he saw little point, other than satisfying his own pride, in bothering. He no longer needed the ego boost of 'proving himself' against an opponent as he had as a Jedi and in his early years as a Sith.

"The Force is your ally?" Vader rumbled. "Then let you stand alone."

C'Baoth looked puzzled for a moment at that statement, and then even more puzzled as his Force Lightning barrage stopped. He shook his fingers a few times as if by doing so he might shake out something that was blocking his fingertips and clear the flow for resuming the attack. C'Baoth looked suspiciously at his hands and then looked around, noticing suddenly three grey skinned creatures carrying frames with even stranger creatures upon them.

"What have you done?" C'Baoth said, his voice rising, "I demand to know!"

"The Ysalamiri my Noghri are carrying create a bubble in the Force, and within that the Force cannot be drawn upon."

"Hah," C'Baoth scoffed, "impossible, and it would affect you just as much as me."

"Wrong, on both counts."

C'Baoth blinked and then his eyes widened in sudden fear as Vader started forward, bionic hands flexing in their black gauntlets, bionic hands and droid parts that were not part of the Force and so would work equally well without it. C'Baoth was not a small man and age had made him leaner rather than weaker, if Vader had still been flesh this would be a challenge he would accept. Knowing though that if Vader got one of his abominations of a hand on him he'd be able to crush bone with it, and that every punch Vader threw would be like being hit by a leather wrapped hammer, did make a difference.

As Vader advanced C'Baoth backed away, eyes flickering to either side as he considered where the doors were and how he could escape and regain the Force. Once he had the Force again he would crush these 'Noghri' and their passengers under tons of debris and then take great pleasure in slowly dismantling Vader piece by piece, and he didn't intend to stop with the bionic parts.

"So much for Jedi serenity," Vader commented.

_'Mockery! Mockery from this half-droid thing!' _C'Baoth thought almost incoherently, the last tatters of his control vanishing.

C'Baoth sprang forward, only to return backwards with almost equal speed as his face met a durasteel fist coming the other way. C'Baoth staggered back and thumped against the wall, blood streaming from his shattered nose and teeth, before sliding down it. Vader moved quickly the few steps forward, C'Baoth kicked out from where he was slumped, but felt his leg first caught and then his ankle squeezed.

Pain shot up C'Boath's leg as the ankle was crushed, he tried to use blocking techniques but without the Force these were almost ineffective. Pride would not let him scream but he couldn't prevent a long and rather high-pitched gasp of pain from escaping him.

Vader drew back his other arm to smash his fist into the knee of the leg he was holding and shatter it, but with some shock he realised he was enjoying this too much. Even if he was not using the Force he was acting with Dark Side intent, taking the knee would achieve nothing but to inflict pain for the sake of inflicting pain. A moment's thought and Vader twisted the hand holding the ankle, ignoring the feel of the bones grating together against his palm, to turn C'Baoth from lying on his side to lying on his front.

C'Baoth's muffled gasp at the fresh pain in his leg was cut short as Vader dropped the leg and, taking one step and going almost onto one knee as he pivoted, drove that hand into the base of C'Boath's skull where he lay. There was a crunch of skull and spine and C'Boath stopped moving.

Vader stood and looked down at the corpse, feeling shivery as he realised just how easily he had started falling back into old habits. How simple it had been even under this minor provocation to enjoy crushing his enemy rather than thinking of fighting as a distasteful necessity. How quickly he could slide back onto the Dark path that Luke's death had drawn him off.

He wasn't even sure that any of the fight was necessary, for his Noghri to get close enough for the Ysalamiri to take effect the distraction his presence caused had been needed but after that? It would have been the work of an instant for the Noghri to kill the Force-less clone.

"Come," Vader said, letting none of his unease enter his voice as he gestured for the Noghri to follow him and strode from the room.

The Noghri paused, glances passing between them, and then two followed their Lord. The third lingered a moment, they had all heard the crunch and the Lord Vader was powerful and wise but it still seemed sensible to make sure. With smoothly flowing grace the Noghri almost seemed to teleport across the room and to crouching over C'Baoth, his thin assassin's knife having appeared in his hand. A quick thrust of this knife into the base of the body's skull and a little wiggle of the blade around to ensure the spine was severed and then the Noghri was away again having made sure of the kill.

=x=x=

Vader stood on the bridge of the _Executor_ looking down at the planet of Wayland. Again he had discarded his helmet in favour of the breathmask but he was beginning to have second thoughts. Perhaps he should be trying to look less evil without making himself more vulnerable, remodelling his armour rather than discarding all but the essential support systems in the revised design. His eyes were stinging so maybe he did need the helmet lenses still, after all what other cause could there be for this?

"Sir?" Admiral Piett said, having approached while Vader was thinking.

Vader turned, remembering a moment too late that his expression was no longer hidden and that he needed to control it. This was more difficult as he realised where Piett was looking, at Vader's belt and at the lightsaber now hanging there. Discovering that the Emperor had not only managed to find and keep the lightsaber which had once been Anakin Skywalker's but had also found and kept the hand which Vader had struck from his son on Bespin had tested Vader's control as much as the confrontation with C'Baoth had. Both brought back bad memories and made Vader's desire for vengeance for Palpatine's manipulations flare higher. At least they both might be of some use though.

"Is the operation complete?" Vader asked, ignoring the questions in Piett's eyes.

"Yes sir," Piett replied, "the Emperor's storehouse has been emptied of all easily removable items, the inhabitants of the town surrounding the mountain dispersed, and our Palpatinist personnel have been… evacuated to a continent on the other side of the planet."

"Excellent," Vader said, reaching out with the Force.

Down on Wayland, deep in the heart of the mountain a subtle twitch of telekinesis flipped a switch and the entire mountain erupted like a volcano as the explosives and the storehouse power generator combined to tear it apart. A wave of dust and debris slid down the slopes of the mountain and through the streets of the town, doing little damage but making a mess that would take a lot of shovelling and dusting to clear. Beneath his breathmask Vader smiled as he saw the tiny flash that was all that was visible from orbit.

This smile faded again though as his thoughts returned to the confrontation with C'Baoth and his near failure. In a way though it was reassuring, he had made a difficult decision and knowing how tenuous his control was would seem to confirm he had made the right choice. Better to avoid situations that could test this control too severely until he managed to improve it, so some revenge could continue to wait.


	8. Chapter 8

Within the depths of the _Executor_, hidden within the depths of space, Vader sat in his hyperbaric chamber meditating. His connection to the light side was fragile and his very fear of losing this connection was dangerous to it. Fear was a path to the Dark Side, and from his experience this was especially true of fear of loss. The fight with C'Baoth had shown how easy it would be to slip into old habits and how tenuous his control could be.

Vader doubted he would ever become enough of a Light Side Jedi that he would not wish to seek revenge against Jabba. That disgusting slug had provided the situation the Emperor had sent his Hand to exploit and was in many ways the most responsible. Even when he had been truly Anakin Skywalker he knew he would not have been that forgiving, that good a Jedi that he'd have been able to let go of his anger and the 'attachment' he felt to his son. Revenge could wait though.

On a personal level Vader wanted to try to strengthen his control and connection with the Light Side before he risked placing himself in a situation where those would be tested so severely.

On a professional level Vader knew it was likely that the Emperor would have anticipated his desire for vengeance and would have laid a trap. However careless "The Lord Vader" had been of the lives of his men Vader was determined to change, to return to having the same concern for his men that he had as a Padawan and as a Jedi Knight during the Clone Wars.

No, Jabba could wait. The Hutt was not going anywhere and even if he did he would be simplicity itself to track down.

Vader slipped back into meditation, feeling more of the light he had so long denied himself and letting it illuminate the dark places in his soul. Slowly his sensitivity increased as he opened himself more and more to the totality of the Force, but his disquiet began to grow as he began to feel a presence. His eyes snapped open, their blue blazing with emotion.

"Master Yoda!" Vader exclaimed, a tinge of fear entering his heart until he saw the form the Jedi Grand Master had taken.

"Anakin Skywalker," Yoda replied, shimmering into existence, the wall of the chamber visible through his translucent form.

"Don't… call me that," Vader said, clinging onto his control by the fingernails he no longer had, "not yet."

"Guilt you feel," Yoda pointed out, in the same knowing tone that had always irritated and reassured Anakin in almost equal measure and did the same now to Vader, "And well you should, but beware your guilt. To extremes drive you it could, new mistakes make you might, new evils commit for best of motives."

Vader remembered his guilt at not saving his mother, and how it had driven him to such extremes to try to not fail to save Padmé. To say this determination had caused him to commit new evils when it had made him a Sith Lord and led him to slaughter his brother Jedi was an understatement of galactic proportions. Vader slowly nodded as his curiosity awoke and overcame the intimidation Yoda's presence, even in this form and even after all those years, created. He remembered being taunted by the Dark Woman on Cophrigin after he had slain her and she had returned as a similar ghost, but he doubted that was Yoda's purpose.

"Why are you here?" Vader asked, "How are you here?"

"Advice I bring," Yoda replied, "and if strong enough you became in the Light, then appear I could. If strong enough in the Light you were not, then advice you were unworthy of."

"My strength in the Light is hardly… impressive," Vader said, bitterness creeping into his tone, "I was easily defeated by the Emperor, and even… oooof!"

To Vader's surprise he actually felt the impact when the translucent blue gimer stick prodded him in the chest, and Yoda seemed to have taken advantage of his immaterial state to poke the tip through the armour and prod the delicate flesh beneath. One bionic hand crept up to rub the spot as if he was still a youngling, and Yoda waved his gimer stick threateningly under Vader's nose to get his attention.

"Always that mistake you make," Yoda said, prodding Vader again to punctuate the statement, again directly onto the flesh but this time the gimer stick passing through the bionic forearm as well. "Confuse external strength with internal, assume because you have power you had strength as well. Refer to power to fight others, I do not! Refer to strength to fight own dark feelings, I do!"

Vader took a moment to think, and to rub the area where he was sure a cluster of bruises was forming from the several prods Yoda had given. Even if Kenobi had been right on the first Death Star when he said Darth Vader was only a master of evil to become a master of anything required study and control. Vader remembered his early days in the suit, how weak he had been with the loss of his power until he developed the strength to use that diminished power to the best effect.

"I would still say my strength in the Light is not impressive," Vader replied, "my anger still runs close to the surface."

Yoda looked at Vader with inscrutable calm eyes and waited.

Vader closed his eyes for a moment as he calmed himself to continue more formally "Master Yoda, any advice you are able to give on controlling my rage would be most welcome. I… find myself unable to use the Sith methods to harness this emotion as fuel for my purpose, but I also find myself unable to release this as a Jedi would rather than simply contain it."

Yoda nodded, "Control you recognise you need, first step this is and only step you need. All methods you require you know, when believe you can do it then succeed you will. More advice, you do not require."

Vader felt and looked unconvinced so Yoda continued, "Doubts you have? Banish them you must or succeed you will not."

"I cherish my doubts," Vader said, meeting Yoda's eyes with his own for the first time, "I cherish the fact that I am no longer blinded by the absolute certainties of being a Sith."

"Hmm, indeed," Yoda replied, satisfied with that as an answer, "Luke doubted absolute statement, always sought to understand the why of things as well as the how, a great Jedi he would have become, a great loss his death is."

"How do you know Luke?" Vader asked, jealous at being told things he didn't know about his own son.

"When Obi-Wan struck down you did Luke's training was barely begun," Yoda replied, "appear to Luke in this way did Obi-Wan, direct him to me he did, train him further I did. Present an interesting contrast with his father. Arrogant you were, knowledge of being the Chosen One tainted you, but lack of arrogance was Luke's problem. Felt he was ordinary he did, failed to understand how critical he was, how important, when chose to risk himself facing you to save his friends."

"Is Luke in the Force?" Vader asked after a moment of guilt and sadness at this reminder of Bespin.

"Yes," Yoda replied flatly, before adding, "but unable to manifest he is… and even if clone him as tempted you are unable to return to possess that body he would be."

Vader felt his jaw slacken as Yoda showed he was aware of his most desperate hope. "Will you convey my apologies," he said once he felt he could speak again, "and that I hope he can one day forgive me?"

"Already forgiven you he has," Yoda replied, "content Luke is, save for one thing."

"Content?" Vader asked incredulously.

"Sacrifice himself he would have done to break the hold of the Dark Side on you," Yoda said, "his death achieved this, so satisfied he is."

"I will not waste this sacrifice," Vader vowed, almost to himself as much as to Yoda. "My fall prevented me from knowing my son and did not let me save my wife. My dreams of her death drove me into creating what I had foreseen. I will not make that mistake again."

"Other mistakes though make you shall if hesitate you continue," Yoda said, "to do what must be done, without hesitation, you must."

Vader stared at Yoda for full seconds before he could again speak. "Did you use those words deliberately?" Vader asked, "Are you seeking to remind me of my sins?"

"What mean you do?" Yoda replied.

"I still remember my first orders as Darth Vader," Vader replied, "Sideous had only just named me such, we were still in his office the high level winds of Coruscant eddying through the broken window through which Master Windu had plummeted. I have never forgotten his words though dwelling recently on what I have become brought them back to mind. When he sent me to lead the attack on the Jedi Temple he told me to 'Do what must be done, do not hesitate, show no mercy' "

"Mercy you may show, Compassion is as part of a Jedi as is duty," Yoda said, "but hesitate through fear you may not. Fear of others or fear of yourself it matters not, it must be confronted and overcome or fall again you shall whatever preparations you make. A task you must perform, the one thing that makes Luke not content in his rest."

"I know," Vader replied, "the Emperor must fall, the Rebel Alliance be succoured in their aims…"

"No," Yoda said flatly. "Or rather, those too but go to Jabba's palace now you must. That is the task you have."

"But…" Vader started to protest.

"Concerned you are that prevent yourself from committing Dark deeds you might not," Yoda interrupted again, "and so you might not. Think a trap the Emperor has set you do, and so he has. Go to Jabba's palace now though you must nonetheless."

Before Vader could think of any further protest or questions Yoda vanished like a dream, only the sore spots on Vader's chest where he had been poked reassuring him that he had not hallucinated the whole thing. Vader looked at the empty spot where Yoda had been for a long moment, and wondered if it would have killed the Grand Master to give a reason for this advice.

To Vader's surprise his breathing went funny and jerky, it took a moment for him to realise he was actually chuckling and that his return to the light had reawoken his sense of humour. Would it actually matter if it would have killed Yoda to give a reason? He was already dead!

As his unexpected reaction died down Vader began to think again. Saying he must go to Jabba's palace did not say why that was important, and why it was important to go now. Confirming the Emperor had set a trap was useful but did not say what sort of trap, how strong it was, or how it would be sprung. As much as he knew he needed to follow Yoda's advice, and trusted there might be a reason why Yoda had decided to let him find answers for himself, this would require some planning.

Vader closed his eyes again, re-established his connection with the Force, and listened to whatever insight it could give him.


	9. Chapter 9

Wedge poked his blaster carbine up over the sandy ridge and sent another burst of fire towards the enemy. As he'd expected Jabba's guards had been easy to neutralise, whether dead or just surrendered and imprisoned in the Hutt's own cells. What he hadn't expected was that the Imperials would ambush them as they were leaving. Wedge glanced behind him at Leia who was looking a little warm in the long coat they had acquired to cover the slave outfit. She glanced back at him, her eyes giving the message to worry about shooting his own targets rather than her, and then she snapped a quick shot off at a Stormtrooper as he dashed from one piece of cover to another.

The Stormtrooper went down, rolling forward in a spray of sand and into the almost invisible dent in the sand he'd been aiming for. Wedge spared that dent a look, it wasn't clear if Leia had hit the Stormie or if he'd thrown himself forward to try to dodge or both, and then looked upwards. The Rogue Squadron boys had been gently mocked by the other volunteers as just being along to watch. It had seemed so unlikely that the rescue attempt would get in such trouble that the threat of levelling Jabba's palace section by section with torpedo and laser fire would be needed.

Wedge did not know where the TIE Interceptors had come from, and right now he didn't much care. The important thing was that although their pilots were not that good they were good enough to not be slaughtered by the Rogues and slowly but surely the X-Wing shields were being worn down. Slowly but surely the Imperial troops were working their way between Wedge's and splitting his people up into easily overcome packets.

At least the Rogues would escape which was some consolation to Wedge. He'd kept them in the fight to prevent enemy strafing runs and in the hope that they'd be able to do some strafing runs of their own. They'd succeeded in the job of prevention but the dogfight had been too intense for any of them to break off to strafe, and now the Rebels and Imperials were too mixed together for either side to call in an air attack without causing casualties to their own people.

Some Imperials would have still called in the strike but these seemed to want prisoners or at least want more tangible remains than a starfighter cannon would leave of a person. It was still a slight gamble, the Imperial commander might change his mind, but there was nothing more the Rogues could do and so, as Luke had ordered him at Yavin, they should get clear. Of course Tycho's feelings about that order here would be similar to how Wedge had felt there so if the order would be obeyed was another question entirely.

=x=x=

Beneath the rim of his cap the Imperial commander's eyes were almost glowing with annoyance. The relatively low-key nature of the assault on Jabba's Palace had taken his observers, and him, a little by surprise but they had compensated and promptly sprung the trap only to realise who they were springing the trap on. When one of his men reported that he thought he had seen Leia Organa being escorted from Jabba's Palace this had only increased the commander's irritation.

Leia Organa. A symbol of the Rebellion. A leader. Someone whose presence it would have been nice to know of.

The commander didn't presume to guess whether Imperial Intelligence were incompetent because they didn't know of her presence or incompetent because they didn't share the information, but if he'd know then he'd have been able to anticipate a potential Rebel rescue mission. Been able to put other plans in place to react to the Rebels rather than Vader arriving. This was not a good situation, the longer it took to deal with these idiots the more likely it was that Vader would learn of the fight and the less chance that they could trap him in his turn.

Someone was going to pay for this, he just hoped it would not be him. At least he had managed to send the cancel order to the Star Destroyers waiting to ambush Vader's own ships. He was sure that the Imperial Intelligence Special Agents and the carefully chosen Stormtroopers and Pilots he'd been given for a command would remain quiet. Jabba could be kept quiet with a few threats and several thousand credits, and the Hutt would keep his people quiet as he had a way with discouraging chatter.

It would have been impossible though, even if nobody deliberately passed the information on, to prevent Vader learning of this if you involved several ships with more than forty-five thousand people on each.

=x=x=

Tycho sideslipped, something the TIEs with their broad vertical panels found very difficult in atmosphere, and sent a neat quad burst of laser fire into the TIE Interceptor. Even with the s-foils in attack spread the X-Wing was more aerodynamic than the TIEs, and the Rogues were good enough that they were taking full advantage of this. It was not a spectacular kill, a small trail of smoke from the holes, but it was good enough that the Squint suddenly began a rolling plummet downwards to smash into the Tatooine sand.

As Tycho brought himself around onto his next target, which his instincts had chosen even before he'd made the kill on the last, he felt a small sensation of dread creep under his flightsuit and down his spine. If the situation was as clear to Wedge as it was to him, and it was probably clearer, then they might soon be ordered to retreat and abandon their friends on the ground. Tycho could agree with the military logic, knew it was only a matter of time, but that didn't mean he wanted to do it.

His astromech whistled a warning as new threat sources appeared on the X-Wing screens. An entire squadron of Assault Gunboats surrounding an Assault Transport was diving on them from orbit. The Gunboats were more aerodynamic than the TIEs and carried missiles, but they were not the threat. If that brick of a Transport reached ground it would be able to deploy troops behind Wedge's people and make sure they were surrounded and caught in a crossfire.

"Three flight," Tycho ordered, "break off and intercept. Volley torpedo fire at the Transport. One flight, two flight, cover them."

There seemed little chance of success, the Interceptors would try to get on Three flight's tail and the Assault Gunboats would do their part as well. Assault Transport shields were tough, it would take a coordinated volley to overwhelm them and Tycho doubted this would be possible with the attack being disrupted by their fighters and the point defence fire from the Transport's turrets.

Still they could do little else but try, they could get lucky or the new arrivals might be less competent than the Imperials the Rogues had been fighting.

=x=x=

"What?" the Imperial commander said, glancing upwards reflexively as the report from the TIE leader sank in.

This was a surprise, he had not been told of any possible reinforcements and there had only TIE Interceptors in the Tatooine caches. Besides the flight path of these new arrivals was wrong for them to be coming from somewhere else on the planet. For a moment the commander thought as laser fire zipped back and forth across the desert landscape until his eyes widened slightly as he realised a possibility.

"Warn them off," he ordered, "tell them to transmit clearance codes and…"

He stopped talking as the first fireballs blossomed in the sky.

=x=x=

As Three flight closed on the new arrivals their IFF codes suddenly shifted and almost in the same instant paired concussion missiles streaked from their launchers and towards the X-Wings. Smoothly Three flight broke and evaded, weaving out of the way, but to Tycho's surprise the missiles didn't even twitch in their courses. They passed through the X-Wing formation and with sun-bright impacts slammed into the TIE Interceptors that had been moving into attack positions on Three flight's rear.

Whether it was the surprise of the attack or the Imperial pilots had not seen the incoming missiles because they had been hidden by the bulk of the X-Wings Tycho was not sure, but the result was undeniable. All bar two of the missiles had made kills, suddenly there was almost a squadron less of the enemy and a squadron more of fighters who might be friends.

Another barrage of paired concussion missiles issued from the Assault Gunboats. These were less successful as the Imperial TIE pilots were expecting them and the range was longer and gave more time to evade. With the agility very little other than a TIE Interceptor had they made their turns and though the missiles curved to follow this barrage mostly failed to hit.

"Break off the attack on the Assault Transport," Tycho ordered, deciding to take a chance, "re-engage the TIEs. Do not fire on the Gunboats unless fired upon."

As the Rogues acknowledged the orders the Assault Gunboats reached gun range and opened up with both laser and ion cannon fire on the disordered TIEs. In this fight for those craft either was fatal, a TIE hit by laser cannon fire might explode and shred but with gravity as an enemy it was just as bad to be hit by ion cannons and plummet like a stone as you lost all power. Tycho was glad he was in an X-Wing, it wasn't easy or pretty to try to dead-stick one down but there was at least as slim chance as the s-foils, unlike the TIE support pylons, were at least something like wings.

The Assault Transport ignored the commotion and simply continued down through the fight, its turrets almost completely silent as there were few targets for them that were not already engaged. As another TIE Interceptor came apart under his guns Tycho hoped this was the right decision, the enemy of your enemy was not always your friend and these people had already shown a willingness to ambush.

'Good luck Wedge,'

Tycho thought, pulling up his fighters nose and letting atmospheric drag slow him so the overeager enemy pilot overshot him.

=x=x=

Wedge had been listening to the Rogue Squadron chatter so the arrival of the Assault Transport was not a complete surprise. What was a surprise though was how precisely it was being flown, it levelled out so close to the ground that great swirling clouds of sand hid it for a moment. Wedge hadn't known those great fat troop carriers could be flown like that, to move directly into such a low altitude rather than pulling out earlier and then having to adjust.

Laser fire from the Imperial positions glanced off the Assault Transport's shields as it moved along at no more than walking pace, dorsal turret slamming starfighter calibre laser fire into any concentration of troops worthy of its attention. It was always like some immense landspeeder, no more than a few meters off the ground even though that ground was not flat and the pilot was having to almost constantly change altitude. Then it became even more impressive as the Assault Transport rolled slightly to present its topside to the incoming fire.

For a moment Wedge couldn't figure out why the pilot would have done that, it meant that rather than a more simple up and down motion they had to steer port and starboard as well to maintain their height. Then he saw the first men begin to drop from the Transport's belly hatch that was now shielded by the bulk of the Transport against the incoming fire. The roll had brought the hatch a little further off the ground but that helped as the extra split second to prepare to tuck and roll compensated for the slightly greater impact. The dorsal turret continued to burn sand into glass as the men rolled, took their firing positions and waited for their signal to open fire.

Wedge raised his macrobinoculars and got another surprise, he'd seen blue but he hadn't realised that aside from that colour the newcomers were identical to Imperial Stormtroopers. Groups of them were now firing, now their entire squad had been deployed, and Wedge had to make a decision what to do. As Tycho had thought earlier Wedge too considered that just because these people were the Imperial's enemy didn't mean they were the Rebel's friends.

His eyes met Leia's again and after an instant she gave a small subtle nod which Wedge returned.

"All squads, this is Antilles," he ordered, "give the new arrivals covering fire, do not over-expose your positions to them, treat them as allies."

Leia nodded again at Wedge as they watched the newcomers move. With the cover fire from the Rebels the smaller groups were moving into larger ones or were moving to outflank the Imperials. There was not much fire coming from them but Wedge had enough ground combat experience to realise that this was the controlled efficiency of elite troops rather than a lack of willingness to fight. If they were not the friends they seemed this could be tricky.

=x=x=

"I don't care if you are fully engaged!" the Imperial commander said. "They'll still have most of their troops onboard, so I need you to deal with that Assault Transport now before they deploy!"

The sound of further protest, or perhaps reluctant agreement, was interrupted and replaced by the noise of a dead channel. For a moment the Imperial commander pinched the bridge of his nose as he recognised that he'd just lost the TIE leader.

"Status?" he asked his aide.

"Long range communications are being jammed," reported the man, "but we might be able to get a burst through to Eidolon base."

"Do it," ordered the commander, wondering why a base had been given the same name as a vanished prototype Strike Cruiser and knowing they'd already emptied it of everything they had the personnel to use. At least the base might have the power to break through the jamming and summon the reinforcements they needed, the reinforcements he had told not to come.

He noticed the Assault Transport was moving back towards the centre of the firing line it had deployed, men were no longer dropping from its hatches as it was flying higher and faster so perhaps this was not so bad. Perhaps these people hadn't been able to bring a full complement of troops. Perhaps they had already deployed all their men. Perhaps, just as likely, it would begin snowing and they could use the blizzard for cover.

=x=x=

"Cease fire, cease fire," Wedge ordered his nearby troops as the Assault Transport slowed and hovered directly in front of him. This view up the nozzles was not something he was used to seeing when he was not in an X-Wing cockpit and even with those engines not thrusting he could still feel warmth from them.

Disdaining subtlety the dorsal, port, and starboard turrets of the Transport simply began blasting away at everything that looked like a possible target. If a dip in the sand might hold some Imperials then it was treated as if it did. Fragments of sand melted into glass sprayed outwards from the impacts as did more grisly fragments where the cannon bolts found a target.

After a few seconds of this barrage the side and belly hatches of the Transport slid open with the suddenness of Imperial door design and more and more of these Blue Stormtroopers began to pour from them and begin a half crouching advance towards the enemy lines. There was little defensive fire coming at them, and that little that did simply brought the Assault Transport's weapons down on that spot, but habit was not a good thing to break in situations like this.

=x=x=

The Imperial commander glanced up over the lip of the ridge and had enough time to realise that all six cannon were pointed almost directly at him. Enough time to realise that his attempts to summon reinforcements and coordinate his men had betrayed the location of his command position. Enough time to draw in one final breath.

And then the Assault Transport turned him, his men, and much of the area around them into a crater.

=x=x=

In less time than Wedge thought possible the Assault Transport was lifting away again, but slightly backwards and tilted slightly nose-up. The previously unused ventral turret added its own fire to the other three as the pilot of the Assault Transport balanced his unwieldy craft so the enemy was in the sweet spot where the dorsal turret above the cockpit and the ventral turret below the engines could both bear. Wedge was glad that he wasn't having to fly against that pilot, and as he saw the Blue Stormtroopers sweeping forward, the firing line now serving to cover that attack's flanks, was glad he wasn't having to fight those men.

The Assault Transport levelled out, ceasing fire as the troops engaged, and then a figure fell from the belly hatch. It fell with strange slowness, a dark cape billowing around it, and then a white-blue column of fire snapped into existence in one hand. Some of the more alert Imperials opened fire but the figure twisted in mid air as it fell, avoiding most and deflecting the rest with almost contemptuous ease and with lazy looking gestures of its lightsaber.

"A Jedi?" Wedge mused aloud.

"I'm not sure," Leia replied, her face showing equal shock. She wasn't sure why she wasn't sure, using a lightsaber and deflecting blaster bolts would be good enough evidence for many, but her instincts were telling her there was more here than was seen.

=x=x==

The debris of the TIE Interceptor sparkled as it fell towards the sand below, twin suns light catching the freshly torn edges. As the fire and smoke of the explosion dispersed Tycho glanced at his screens and noted that although there were still a lot of craft which were not marked as friendly that these were all marked as unknown. That had been the last definite enemy and now the mysterious Assault Gunboats were retreating back to escort positions on the Assault Transport that was rising again to a higher altitude.

"Rogue Squadron," Tycho ordered, "form on me."

With that Tycho brought his X-Wing around in a gentle turn towards Jabba's palace, slowing as he did as he diverted power from thrust to recharging his shields and lasers. The other Rogues fell into formation, similarly taking advantage of the pause in the fighting, and they moved away from the other group. Both groups of fighters gaining a little distance from the other, enough distance to give a little warning if one side decided to attack.

Tycho hoped this was an unnecessary precaution but he wasn't willing to take the chance of not taking it.

=x=x=

The fighting appeared to be over both on the ground and in the sky above so, over Wedge's protest, Leia had insisted that they go and investigate. He had not objected to her wanting to find out more about what exactly was going on, but after the trouble they had gone through rescuing her he had wanted her to remain behind. This suggestion had not lasted long.

Now with a few men they were approaching where the enemy command position had been as they had seen their supposed allies herding prisoners to this location to take advantage of the crater before the Tatooine weather filled it with sand and ground the glass back to dust. Around the rim of the crater the blue Stormtroopers stood looking down at the kneeling figures below them in the slight dip. Without their armour the enemy troops looked almost as naked in their black bodysuits as Leia had in her slave bikini, an image which Wedge kept on having to force from his mind.

The tall cloaked figure they had seen dive from the Assault Transport turned towards them, away from contemplating the prisoners, as they approached. Even without the width the cloak gave him Wedge was sure this man would have been a broad and imposing figure. The aura of strength around him was not lessened by the breath mask he was wearing and the massive scars just visible under the hood of his cloak only made him look battle tested rather than wounded and weak.

Strangely familiar blue eyes passed over Wedge with nothing but polite interest but then the figure stiffened. Wedge heard a gasp from behind him and turning saw Leia had stopped and was also standing like a statue as her gaze and that of the man locked.

=x=x=

Recognition burned through Vader's soul as he felt an achingly familiar presence in the Force. It was like Luke, it was like Padmé, it was like a mirror, it was like all of them and none of them. When he first saw Luke he had seen his own eyes looking at him, why had he never noticed in _all_ their meetings that when he saw Leia Organa it was Padmé's eyes looking back? Twins, Padmé had been pregnant with twins and it had been no coincidence that one of her political allies and friends had adopted a daughter within days of her death.

Vader supposed he had been blinded first by his own pain and then, when he had regained sufficient insight to have been able to make the connection, had been blinded by having already accepted Leia as being the Organa's rather than still wondering about her. Whatever Leia had been through recently though the stress had strengthened her connection to the Force, made her glow brighter in it, made it obvious enough that even senses blinded by familiarity could see the truth. Vader froze as he and Leia shared the moment of communion, but he saw only recognition of who he was come into her eyes, not recognition of who he was to her.

"Vader" hissed Leia.

Vader staggered almost imperceptibly as the connection broke abruptly, he'd been sensing on a more powerful level than she had so was more affected by the sudden absence. He saw the man with her looking at him in puzzlement, trying to connect the man dressed in browns and blacks with the image of the Dark Lord of the Sith. Vader had little attention to spare for that though as he saw what Leia, what his daughter, was wearing under the coat that she had let slip open during her moment of paralysis. The Hutt had treated his daughter with such disrespect as to make her wear that?

The heat of the Tatooine desert suddenly seemed icy cold to Vader, as compared with the burning fire in his heart it was. With an effort Vader nodded politely in confirmation to Leia before turning to Colonel Emberton. Leia closed her coat absent mindedly as she thought, and Vader had to further leash his anger as he sensed the slight disappointment from Emberton at the loss of that view.

"Keep processing prisoners Colonel, I have something to discuss with Jabba the Hutt," Vader said, keeping almost all of his rage out of his voice.

"Yes sir," Emberton replied not sure what had put that tone into Vader's voice.

Wedge frowned, it seemed strange to call Darth Vader sir rather than my lord. Vader strode away across the sand towards Jabba's Palace. Leia watched him go, still thinking and trying to figure out what had just happened.

"Something strange is going on," Wedge commented.

"Indeed," Leia said, discarding the puzzle for the moment and turning to Emberton, "but I'm sure the Colonel here would be willing to explain."

The Colonel looked less sure. Emberton didn't know quite where to start or what he'd say once he'd figured that part out.

=x=x=

Jabba the Hutt lounged back on his throne, satisfied with life and enjoying the scents of his Palace. The distinct smell of ruptured intestines from the guards who had resisted the Rebels was merging delightfully with the scent wafting through the grill in front of his throne from the decaying mass that had been his Rancor. It would have been a lot of work dismembering and removing that immense corpse, work which Jabba felt would be wasted effort. However unpleasant humanoid species found the smell it reminded him of the beautifully stagnant swamps of home. Besides the mass of flies and insects the corpse provided food for would provide food for larger insects and for amphibians and those would be tasty snacks for a happy Hutt.

It had been quite amusing watching the Rebels when they saw their precious Princess. They were torn between their quaint morals and their anger, they wanted to inflict pain on Jabba in revenge for the death of their friends but when Jabba had ordered his people to lay down their weapons and calmly surrendered they had been powerless. When the Rebels came under attack themselves Jabba had considered having his remaining guards break out the spare weapons and attack the Rebels in the rear, but it would have been too much inconvenience to release them from the cells the Rebels had secured them in.

Jabba looked up as he heard footsteps, there was only one set but they were approaching with confidence and without hesitation. For a moment a superstitious fear oozed through the cracks of his arrogance as he saw the cloaked figure striding down the entrance hall, ignoring the scattered corpses and the puddles of blood. The figure seemed so familiar for that moment it felt, though he knew it was irrational, that Luke Skywalker had returned from the Sarlaac to kill him. Rationality returned and Jabba noticed the humanoid approaching was too tall and too broad to be the weakling Jedi he had killed.

The figure stopped in front of Jabba and again familiarity made itself known as he, it was a man, flicked the hood of his cloak down and met Jabba's eyes with the same almost arrogance as Luke Skywalker had displayed, but with little of the serenity. There was a moment of silence and then the man spoke.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"Should I?" Jabba replied in Huttese, putting disdain into his voice.

"Until recently I was known as Darth Vader," the man said, "but before that I was Anakin _Skywalker_."

Jabba blinked his huge protuberant eyes. His respect for the Jedi had diminished when they feted as the Chosen One a boy who had been nothing but a pod-racing slave. His respect for the general population would have diminished if he'd had any when that boy was feted as the Hero without Fear by them. Now learning that he'd actually feared that boy, now by his short lived species reckoning a man, Jabba felt a sense of having been deceived. That sense faded though as he considered last names and realised a possibility for why this figure had reminded him of Luke Skywalker.

One hand started to creep to the trigger for the trapdoor, even with the Rancor dead it would still take time for Vader to get back to the audience chamber. Time to flee, time to release some guards and let them be slaughtered to cause a further delay. Jabba's hand froze as if the air around it had set into durasteel, he rippled the muscles of his underside to put his weight into the push but found that had no effect. He could blink and move his mouth and tongue, but any other motion met the same immovable resistance as had seized his hand.

Vader gestured with his left hand and half a wall exploded into dust and fragments of plaster, the clips securing a slim metal cylinder falling away as the wall disintegrated, and that cylinder flying from the cloud of debris into Vader's grasp. For a moment he looked at Luke's lightsaber, pride in his son having built such a fine weapon warring with fresh sorrow at his son's death. Vader met Jabba's eyes again and, with a twitch of the Force, brought the lightsaber from his belt into his right hand.

The walk had allowed Vader to calm himself slightly, he was going to kill Jabba but perhaps not as slowly. Then as the light shifted with the settling of the dust from the wall he saw a glint of metal and saw the chain lying across the floor, a broken collar at the end of it, and he remembered the marks on Leia's neck. Marks that could have been made by that collar and almost certainly had been.

Vader decided he didn't like the way Jabba was looking at him, and even less liked the idea of how the Hutt would have looked at his daughter. It was an idle thought, Vader was so angry that he was almost frozen with rage, but the silence of the throne room was broken by an obscene pop. Clear jelly spewed from Jabba's left eye as it was crushed like a Granite Slug under an airbus. Jabba bellowed in pain until with equal ease and detachment Vader closed his airways and denied him that release at the same time as denying him air.

The Hutt's pain and fear spread through the throne room as blood and fluid spread down his face from the ruined eyesocket. Vader savoured it and considered what part of the immense corpulent body to crush or tear next, his bionic fists clenched on the lightsabers in his hands and he felt their metal flex slightly under the pressure. With an effort he forced himself to hold them more lightly, he didn't want to crush these reminders of his son…

His son! _Luke!_

It was like being thrown in an ice bath. Suddenly Vader saw what he was doing how Luke would have seen it, how much torturing someone to death, even someone who deserved it as much as Jabba, would dishonour Luke's memory. Jabba's remaining eye rolled back to look at Vader as the Hutt found he could breathe again but Vader took no pleasure now as he would have scant moments before in seeing the fear in that eye.

Vader brought his hands palm-up and relaxed them completely, the lightsabers lay there for a moment and then streaked across the audience chamber. The blades ignited into existence and then were hidden again almost instantly as the lightsabers buried themselves to their hilts in Jabba's head. The remaining eye popped as the blue blade pierced it and its fluids superheated, the green blade did less immediate damage as the eye it pierced had already been ruined. Jabba thrashed in Vader's Force grip as his brain started to cook from either side.

Vader waited a few long seconds, he remembered the example of a Hutt who had survived having half its brain destroyed so he wanted to make sure of Jabba. Then he ripped the lightsabers free and sideways, across Jabba's head rather than out the nearest side. The blades scissored past each other and then the lightsabers returned to Vader, their blades shrinking away as they did. The very ease with which the lightsabers had cut bone, brain, and flesh made the wounds appear less dramatic as the severed parts had simply settled back down onto what they had been cut from.

Calmly Vader clipped the lightsabers to his belt, then calmly he crossed to the shattered wall, removed his breath mask, and vomited profusely. For a minute or more he alternated clasping his breath mask to his face for the enriched air his lungs needed and retching until finally he calmed. He was not sure if it was the after effects of his rage or of realising how close he had come to wasting Luke's sacrifice but he had to draw greatly on the Force to keep the world from spinning. Slowly at first but with increasing vigour Vader walked back down the entrance hall, inside he was still feeling shaky but he had learned as a slave and as the Emperor's apprentice to hide his inner feelings and show only what he wanted to show.

=x=x=

Leia saw Vader returning across the sand and realised she could sense something different about him. He seemed less indestructible, more human and less avatar of evil, and it wasn't just that he was no longer wearing his infamous armour. The tale this Colonel Emberton had told them was almost unbelievable, why after more than twenty years Vader and the Emperor had suddenly become open enemies was inexplicable. It said much for Vader that his people were following him despite his not having given them a reason for his change and that Pellaeon, who Leia had once met and knew of, would have joined him.

What business Vader had here on Tatooine was also unknown. His assistance had been welcome, even if the trap the Rebels had fallen into was actually Vader's fault as it had been aimed at him and that as he'd known of the trap Vader had brought so little of the forces available to him. Wedge had at least been able to confirm the sudden departure of the Star Destroyers at Endor and how that had opened a path for the Rebel fleet, so there were at least some clear facts to cling to.

Vader looked at Wedge and Leia, a strange mixture of emotions lurking behind his eyes, before turning to the kneeling prisoners.

"You know who I am," Vader said simply, "will any of you join me?"

There was no movement, no response, not even a twitch from any of the Imperial troops. They all treated the question with the contempt they felt it deserved.

"Colonel," continued Vader, "you may shoot them."

"What…" Wedge began to object, cutting his protest short as Leia placed a hand on his arm to restrain him. Wedge looked at Leia with some puzzlement, but she looked back with reassuring calm. Leia wasn't sure why she didn't feel a protest was needed, but she had confidence it wasn't.

The Blue-armoured Stormtroopers, a blue Leia suddenly recognised as being the same as the old Judicial Department, raised their blasters. There was a stir in the crater as the Imperials tensed and prepared to try to charge and at least die on their feet. Then Vader's men opened fire and Wedge relaxed as he saw the blue stun bolts.

Some of the Imperials collapsed where they were, others fell back down from where they had managed to rise, and a few managed to take a few running steps at their guards before they were rendered unconscious. Without the protection of their armour though even the toughest of them could not take more than two or three stunbolts before their determination was overcome.

Vader gestured and Emberton placed a blaster in his hand. Carefully Vader aimed and began firing, each shot hitting a prostate figure but each figure he hit jerking and showing that Imperial had not already been unconscious. To those watching, including Wedge and Leia, this seemed almost uncanny to be able to pick out from a mass of identically dressed men those who were pretending from those who were not. To Vader though telling the difference was so simple it had almost not occurred to him that his men would have been incapable of doing so.

"Put their supplies where they can see them," Vader ordered, handing the blaster back to Emberton, "and then have our men board the Transport."

"Yes sir," replied Emberton, "Ah… weapons as well?"

"Have you ever fought a Tusken Raider, Colonel?" Vader asked, managing with twenty years distance to keep his particular hatred from his voice.

"No sir," nodded Emberton as he realised what Vader meant, "understood sir, weapons as well."

Emberton moved away and began giving orders. This was quite a quiet process as with commlinks built into their helmets there was no need for him to shout at his men or his subordinates. Vader watched this for a moment and then turned back to the Rebel leaders. This was not how he had anticipated meeting them, he had planned to do more to show he was now Palpatine's enemy and only then make tentative contact and gradual progress towards an alliance with the Alliance.

Discovering Leia's parentage though changed much. If she could be trained as a Jedi then she could be of much help to his plans and allow him to avoid making a painful choice. More importantly though it would be a fitting way to honour the memory of her brother and her mother to help her achieve her full potential. It would be difficult though, as before he could train her he would need her to agree to this and he had seen how stubborn she was. It was not just beauty and brown eyes she had inherited from Padmé.

"I would like you to carry a formal request from me to your leaders for a meeting," Vader said, "but now we should go quickly as more of Palpatine's forces are probably on their way."

Wedge nodded and began leading Leia away, his own puzzlement not preventing him from noticing the bemused glances Leia was casting back as Vader also moved away. There was something strange going on and the politics were only a small part of it. Thankfully that was Leia's problem as she was the one who told him what to shoot. All Wedge had to worry about was risking his life hurtling through space or atmosphere and being shot at, which was much less dangerous than diplomacy.

=x=x=

The room around the Emperor was strangely undamaged. When he had sensed the unease of the messengers Palpatine had decided to retreat to an inner sanctum to read them, somewhere he was able to let go of the illusion of the weak old decayed man and revel in his full power in the Dark Side. The fact that if he wanted he could unleash his anger had helped him control it though, the thick durasteel walls were unmelted and the various targets still intact.

Although the trap had cost him little as the supplies had come from those Pestage had embezzled and the people were easily replaceable it was still infuriating that it had failed. His former apprentices misguided mercy had been amusing though as naturally all the survivors would be executed in various imaginative ways, which provided some consolation.

That consolation was far outweighed however by the report of the destruction of Mount Taniss and of his personal storehouse. It would be difficult to determine what had been taken and what had been destroyed and this was one more treachery for Vader to pay for. At least again he had left some people to be punished for their failure, were these "Palpatinists" truly worthy of serving their Emperor they would have retaken their ships from the traitors.

At least now though a new apprentice had been found, and one whose mind had already been taken on the first steps to obedience. This apprentice would be a servant of his master's will rather than being given independence, a weapon rather than an heir as with his clone bodies Palpatine planned to live and reign forever.


	10. Chapter 10

**Part Two**

The _Executor _slowly approached the Mon Calamari naval yards, minimal power to her engines and her shields and weapons offline. Around her squadrons of Calamari Cruisers kept pace with her, their shields and weapons fully powered and their crews on alert for any treachery. This had taken months of work to make possible but there were still many on both sides with excellent reasons to think it was a bad idea…

_The moon looked peaceful as the _Chimaera_ orbited above it but Pellaeon knew that in the hidden tunnels and facilities Imperial Intelligence black-ops personnel lurked and trained. These were the people who carried out the intimidation, the assassination, and the bloody killing that were the more secret aspect of the Empire's subduing of its citizens. To even be considered for these elite units you had to have demonstrated your willingness to kill those that didn't deserve to die, and to torture and maim without hesitation._

_Pellaeon and his gunnery officer exchanged one last look before Pellaeon nodded and the officer began his work. Turbolaser fire burned into the rock of the moon and through it to the tunnels beneath. Superheated air rushed out through these holes to spend itself in the vacuum of the surface. More turbolaser fire spewed down and at the base's reactors, which exploded and shredded the area surrounding them._

_It did not take long to completely destroy the base, if there were more than a few trapped survivors slowly dying as pockets of air ran out or as they froze as the base became as cold as the surrounding rock then Pellaeon would be very surprised. These people had relied on secrecy for protection, even if their early warning systems had not been bypassed their weak defences would have made no difference to the result._

…The _Executor_ cut her engines completely and let momentum carry her as she entered the tractor beam range of the spacedock. On her bridge Admiral Piett worked to keep a sour expression off his face as he felt the tractor beams engage, he never liked having his ship under the control of anyone but himself and his crew and he doubted the competence of Rebel trained tractor beam operators…

_Another troop transport spilled its load of men into the unforgiving void as it was torn apart. Space was becoming thick with bodies as methodically ship by ship and deck by deck of each ship the convoy was destroyed. Although Piett tried to keep his feelings off his face he knew that Lord Vader could sense his mixed feelings about this task. Killing soldiers without letting them be able to fight back was excellent military sense, the objective that all commanders should strive for, but it still seemed distasteful somehow._

_As more flailing forms slowly stopped moving as they died Piett wondered to himself if he'd have been able to do this had he not known what sort of troops these were. Would it have made a difference if he hadn't known these were reprisal units?_

_It was justice in a way that these people were being killed while helpless after all the helpless people they had killed. All the civilians they had herded into camps or simply shot. The towns and villages they had burned with only occasionally this being without burning the inhabitants as well. The people they had publicly tortured or mutilated as an example to other._

_But the justice did not stop this from still being a little distasteful._

…Gradually the _Executor_ was guided in towards the spacedock and it became clear that what had looked small was in fact a gargantuan facility capable of holding even a Super Star Destroyer. It also became clear that this facility was a great distance from all the others, that while other spacedocks were clustered together so supplies and personnel could easily be transferred this one was isolated…

_Admiral Daala cursed the incompetence of her subordinates as yet more of her ship was reduced to molten and twisted wreckage. She had trained and drilled them so hard only for them to fail her now when the first challenge arrived. Even if these ships did have superior shielding and firepower they were manned by traitors and so should fall. That her Star Destroyers had been isolated guarding the Maw installation, were of an older design, and had not been refitted as technology improved was no excuse._

_Another barrage slammed into her ship and another and then through the narrow passage in the black holes a monstrous shape appeared. This looked Imperial in design but it was huge, far larger than any self-mobile structure that Daala had ever seen save the Death Star prototype. This new ship accelerated towards the skeletal sphere, its weapons silent but then the prototype began to move. Space warped as massive tractor beams shoved the prototype Death Star ahead of the new ship until it began to warp and twist as it got closer and closer to the edge of a black hole._

_The last thing Daala saw before, almost mercifully, a turbolaser salvo ripped through her bridge was a slight twinkle of light as the Death Star prototype was shredded and its reactor exploded, the expanding gases of the explosion themselves being caught and sucked into the black hole. Opposition and primary goal destroyed Vader's ships completed their task by tearing the rest of the Maw installation apart before returning through the path Vader's Force instincts had found._

…Why they would think it would be worth using the _Executor_ as a bomb was a mystery to Vader. Even if they packed her to the bulkheads with extra explosives to enhance the self-destruct the area of effect would not be that wide. It had been easy though to agree to them isolating a spacedock. If they wanted to go to the extra trouble of towing a spacedock out of position, if this made them feel better about the meeting, then he was happy to let them…

_A pinpoint of light swelled into a falling star as it closed and then spent itself as another precision turbolaser strike hit the prisoner of war camp fortifications. All the guard towers had been destroyed, almost all the guard barracks were aflame, and great holes had been carved through the walls surrounding the camp and separating it into more easily controlled sections. A shuttle made a low altitude pass over the swirling mass of prisoners who flinched as they saw objects falling from its belly._

_Rather than bombs or poison to their surprise the objects were guns and, once those hit by them had been tended to, these weapons were brandished in defiance of the few surviving guards. Blood flowing down one cheek from where the gun he had tried to catch had grazed his head on its way to his hands the prisoner leader shouted to his men to follow him._

_With a roar the Rebel prisoners charged towards the Vehicle Park and the shuttles and transports that would let them make their escape. Repeating blaster emplacements opened up and cut swathes in the mob but as one fell another took up his weapon and continued the fight. The shuttle curved back and began striking at bunkers, but soon had to stop as the prisoners overran them and killed all within._

…The structure of the spacedock surrounded the _Executor_ like the legs of some giant spider crouching over a rat. A slight jolt ran through the ships structure as the short ranged but powerful mooring tractor beams locked onto her and locked her into position. Mon Calamari workers gazed at the _Executor_ from most of the spacedock's viewports. Most of the Mon Calamari were simply looking because they had never thought they would get this close to the former pride of the Imperial fleet. Others with a more practical bent of mind were already assessing the wound in the _Executor's_ flank and the temporary plating over it like a protective scar.

The rumble of the _Executor's_ reactors almost died as all power but the minimal life support needed for the skeleton crew that would remain onboard was cut. It would take long minutes for the _Executor_ to power up again, minutes during which the spacedock tractor beams could twist at her structure and expel her into open space to be fired upon. She would serve as hostage to Vader's good behaviour, a token of good faith that he could not afford to lose.

=x=x=

Mon Mothma and Vader entered the room at the same time from opposite sides. This had been carefully arranged as if one was present before the other then both sides could take offence, one suggesting their leader was insulted by being brought before the other and the other suggesting their leader was insulted by having had to wait for the other leader's convenience. For a moment they just looked at each other, eyes locking as they assessed their opponent and potential ally and then they both gave a slight nod and moved to sit.

Vader allowed himself a moment to think. It had been a long time since he and the former senator from Chandrilla had been in the same room and although she had aged since first they met she still had the same calm beauty as she had possessed as one of the youngest senators to be elected. Vader glanced to either side of him at Piett and Pellaeon who had stopped looking quite so uncomfortable in their new uniforms. When he had ordered that his forces revert to the colours of the Judicial Department even Pellaeon had taken a while to get used to it, to stop feeling that he had put the wrong clothes on that morning.

Across the table there were the people he expected. Admiral Ackbar to deal with the military matters, General Cracken to deal with those of spycraft and intelligence, and Leia Organa to deal with diplomacy and politics. It was hard when he looked at her to not let an expression of dumb pride come onto his face, all those achievements she had made that had irritated him as the Emperor's servant were now something he felt so proud of. She was almost as competent as his angel, her mother, had been.

One piece of good fortune had been that one person who a few months ago would have been at this meeting was not. There had been suggestions that the information Vader supplied had been intended to deceive but Vader had been careful to provide all the information he had, even the pieces that showed him in a bad light and revealed his involvement in that plan. Showing how the Bothans had been manipulated, with this seeming more important in the aftermath of defeat than it would have done in victory, had broken the power they had accumulated with the blood of their martyrs and broken Borsk Fey'lya's career as well.

"I know why you are in rebellion," Mon Mothma said, interrupting Vader's thoughts on how good it was the backstabbing Bothan was not present, "and I am not prepared to cooperate with you on a quest for _personal_ vengeance. For us to work together you have to agree to support the goals of the Alliance to restore the Republic and formally become part of the Alliance."

Vader took a moment to control his anger before replying. He had got used over the preceding months to being the highest authority and not having to answer to a superior, so being given an ultimatum was not something he was used to.

"I will abide by the goals as written," Vader replied, his lips moving behind his transparent breathmask, "but my interpretation of them may differ from some of yours."

"This is not a debate," Mon Mothma said, locking her gaze with Vader.

"Maybe not," Vader semi-interrupted, speaking before Mon Mothma could continue, "but even if my forces do not joint the Alliance there will _be_ a debate. The evil the Emperor has done does not change how corrupt and unworkable the Republic had been becoming, even your petition of the 2000 did not seek to reverse all the changes Palpatine had made."

Pellaeon shifted in his seat as old anger reawakened. He and many others had felt so betrayed when word of that petition had leaked out. They had just won the Clone Wars, they had left their dead in thousands of star systems, and the response of the politicians had been to try to discard them. To return to playing their old games, the games that had left them rich on corruption and left the Republic to be torn apart by war.

"Have you ever seen what pirates or raiders leave behind where the rule of law is weak?" Pellaeon asked pointedly.

"Yes," Cracken said, equal steel in his voice, "and have you ever seen what is left behind by Imperial 'pacification' operations?"

"I was talking about what I had seen as an officer in the Republic Judicial Department," Pellaeon replied, "as well as, yes, what happens when criminals take advantage of patrol forces being diverted to Rebel hunting."

"Rebel hunting," Cracken said, false musing in his voice. "I wonder how many forces have been diverted to hunt you, and what harm that diversion might have caused…"

"We can all agree," Leia said firmly, cutting the argument short, "that Civil War and Corruption can both create opportunities for criminals to take advantage of. Can't we?"

Cracken and Pellaeon looked at each other a moment longer before they both nodded and subsided.

"And," Leia continued, "we can all agree that it is better to settle points of contention now, diplomatically, rather than risk a new Republic divided against itself even before it was born."

More nods. A moment of quiet.

"Now to more practical matters!" Ackbar suddenly said. "How do you propose, _if_ we are allies, to integrate your forces with ours?"

"Good question," Piett replied, relief on his face the change of subject to something less fraught and to something he could actually be considered as an expert on. "As you can see from these analyses our strengths are as follows…"

=x=x=

Leia had her eyes closed as she relaxed into the chair in her quarters. Despite Ackbar and Piett keeping the meeting focussed narrowly, she suspected they had used their detailed proposals and counterproposals to prevent any other discussion until tempers had cooled, it had still been a strain. Since she had been rescued those months ago she had been working hard and having to deal with all here responsibilities as well as her grief. Her friends had done their best to support her but she felt she more needed a holiday than she needed the extra complications she was sure Vader would bring in his wake.

Her eyes opened as she heard the door hiss open and to her surprise she saw Vader filling the doorway and waiting in the corridor. Security should have prevented him being able to reach this far into a high security area, or at the least have contacted her to ask if she wanted to talk with him rather than him simply showing up. There was something about Vader though that made Leia think he seemed nervous, however unlikely that was, so she reassumed her manners before she spoke.

"Is there something you want?" Leia asked politely. "I was under the impression the meeting had covered all that needed to be covered today, and it is inappropriate for us to speak outside of the official meetings…"

"This is not political," Vader said, interrupting the lecture on diplomatic protocol, "it is personal. You are the only witness so please tell me, how did Luke die?"

"Luke?" Leia replied, surprised at Vader calling him that rather than Commander Skywalker. Then with a sudden insight she connected this with the blue eyes she had noticed on Tatooine and again at the meeting, and with what Mon Mothma had said to Vader.

"That's it," Leia accused, "that was what Mon Mothma meant by personal vengeance. I don't know how… but you, you're Luke's father."

"I think," Vader replied, looking down to the side and towards the deck, not meeting Leia's eyes," I think Luke's father was really his Uncle Owen, who although no blood relation was the son of the man who married my mother. But, yes, I did father him though my fall to the Dark side let the Emperor tell me my wife had died with our child unborn."

Leia nodded, rather shocked at what she was learning. Luke had been the son of Vader. Luke's Uncle Owen had been Vader's step-brother. Vader had been married and had fallen into darkness rather than always having been evil.

"Please," Vader continued, "tell me. I saw some of what happened through the Force, but I have questions that need answering."

"What did you see?" Leia asked.

"I saw Luke over the Sarlaac pit," Vader replied, half closing his eyes as he re-summoned the images, "I saw him leap, his lightsaber arcing towards him, and then I saw it divert and fly instead to the grasp of the Emperor's Hand Mara Jade."

"Emperor's Hand?" Leia asked.

"Palpatine's special agent," Vader said, smiling ruefully, "I was hardly capable of much subtlety, even before I was encased in that armour, and some jobs were better suited to her talents. The Emperor knew Luke was a threat to him, whether Darth Vader turned him as an ally or Luke managed to reawaken the man I was. I assume that was why he sent his Hand to kill him."

"You know almost as much as I do," Leia replied after a moment to absorb this revelation, "while they were fighting outside I was rather busy myself, a few seconds longer and I'd have managed to finish choking Jabba with the chain he'd leashed me with…"

Vader blinked at that, reminded strongly of the arena on Genosis and how Padmé had smacked the Nexu with the chain she'd been leashed with. It was hard to keep his face impassive and to not blurt out the comment that Leia was just as feisty as her mother.

"…but I do know it is almost certain this 'Emperor's Hand' died for her actions," Leia concluded.

"What?" Vader asked, wondering if the precautions he had taken against Mara Jade had been wasted.

"Jabba's guards had been, shall we say, enthusiastic in stopping me strangling him," Leia said with casual understatement, "I wasn't able to walk unaided and when they carried me up onto the deck I saw a human female corpse. Though I was only semi-conscious they were kind enough to point the corpse out to me as an example of what could happen if I gave them any more trouble. Luke's lightsaber was still in one of its hands though the body had almost been cut in two and the guards had to make quite a diversion to avoid stepping on the guts that had been spilled across the deck."

"Yes…" Vader mused, his eyes going unfocussed as his sight turned from the cabin and into the Force. "She snatched the lightsaber from the air, she grinned in triumph at Luke, she knew she had done her master's will… and then a Gammorean swung his vibroaxe deep into her side. The Gammorean was acting almost without thought or hostility that could be sensed, and Jade had needed to concentrate so hard to fend off Luke's attempts to reclaim his lightsaber from her. Then as Jade crumpled the Gammorean had ripped his axe free, tearing intestines out though the wound with it, and then stared down at the body, puzzlement creasing his snout as he wondered what was going on and what he had just done."

There was a silence as both Vader and Leia thought. Leia trying to adjust to the revelations. Vader thanking the Force that he had not known that Jabba had had Leia beaten or perhaps not even the reminder Luke's lightsaber had brought would have been enough to let him reassert his fragile control over his anger. He would have told himself he was just avenging the wrong done to his daughter, but what he would have done to Jabba would have been as terrible as what he had done to the Tusken village and would have nourished the darkness within him just as greatly.

"Only the Emperor remains," Vader said eventually, "take this."

Leia took what Vader was holding out, looked down at Luke's lightsaber, and then back up at Vader with a question in her eyes.

"You have great power in the Force, I can sense it," Vader continued, answering the unspoken question, "you should be trained as a Jedi so you can use it."

"And I suppose you are volunteering to do the training," Leia replied, not sure if she was more incredulous at the idea of being trained as a Jedi or the idea that Vader should be the one to do it.

"Yes," Vader said simply before continuing. "Luke's death shocked my connection with the Light side of the Force awake again. Reminded me of the man I was, of the beliefs I held, and by training you in what it means to be a Jedi I can remind myself more of those same lessons."

Leia looked dubious, and suspicious. She could tell there was more going on than Vader was saying, something he was hiding.

"And consider this," Vader continued, "the more you learn to use your power the more chance there is that if I fall again there will be someone who can stop me, or who can fight the Emperor on more equal terms than someone without the Force could."

Leia thought some more before finally nodding in reluctant agreement. This was still not the complete truth but it was close, and close enough for her to be willing to accept some training while she tried to discover the rest of what Vader was planning. Hopefully this would be the right decision, hopefully it was the Light side of the Force reassuring her it was a good idea rather than the Dark.


	11. Chapter 11

Gilad Pellaeon looked around the briefing room at the other inhabitants and had to remind himself not to underestimate them. A more scruffy and unimpressive group of men in sloppy civilian clothing could not be imagined. But that was the point, it took a lot of skill for commando infiltrators to look quite so much like dead-beat civilians.

"Gentlemen," Pellaeon said, blinking a little as his formal tone brought a transformation. Now the briefing was about the start the commandos straightened just slightly in their chairs, their eyes began to display a previously hidden intelligence, and suddenly their clothes looked like the costumes they were. "As you can see security around your objective is tight, but there are gaps," Pellaeon continued, "you would have little chance of infiltrating one of the target facilities yourself, but your commanders have expressed their confidence in your ability to find a way."

"With respect sir," the commando leader said, sitting a little straighter still, "your job is to give us the information you possess, our job is to use that information to make our own judgements. I would not advise you on the conduct of a fleet operation."

"Of course," Pellaeon replied, taking the implication. Their arrogance was annoying but special forces were often less concerned with protocol than regular forces, and considering how little concerned many of the "old" Rebel Alliance were with protocol that was saying something.

In some ways what was more annoying though was that the commander of the target system's forces was being quite such a slave to set procedure. Any commander with even a tinge of imagination or initiative would have been harder to predict, this man was working more like an automaton than most of the war droids of the Clone Wars. However good this was now, for the purposes of the Rebel Alliance and of Vader's forces who were now allied with them, Pellaeon still wanted to take the system commander and lecture him and try to divert him into better habits.

=x=x=

The shuttle hung in space, everything dark. The only power onboard came from batteries, and the only thing being powered were the sensitive passive sensors that were watching the patrol craft. The scan radius of each patroller touched and slightly overlapped that of the ones to either side of it, together they created one giant field of scanning. Together that was until the moment they were waiting for. One patroller turned to follow another, but was not followed in its turn.

In almost a literal eyeblink of time the shuttle came back to life. Thrusters ignited, sensor feedback units powered up so the stealth composites would give the same readings as standard materials well as looking like them, and the shuttle dove into the tiny gap. Normally there would have been another patrol craft to cover that area but not today. Maintenance schedules had come together so the surveillance was being done with fewer craft and brief openings were appearing.

To gain enough access to the patrol and maintenance schedules to predict those openings had not been easy. To have a craft stealthy enough to get close and fast enough to pass through the gap before it closed was even harder. Engines and repulsorlifts whined as the shuttle shed the speed of its orbit without heating the atmosphere with drag-braking. Then the shuttle pulled out of that dive with more creaks of protest and was suddenly flying at a normal altitude at a normal speed for a normal surface to surface run.

The lights on the IFF beacon flickered as it accepted and replied to the interrogations of the air traffic control computers as those computers noticed them. False information fed back along the traffic control links as the shuttle flew along a path where control areas overlapped and one computer was told the other was monitoring the shuttle and the other computer was told the same in reverse. Any traffic controller bored or curious enough to check would have found a whole flight plan logged as the shuttle's computers took advantage of the information update feeds to lie effectively.

As they approached their target the occupants of the shuttle became more and more tense as time passed and no challenge was issued.

"I don't like this," one commented, peering ahead through the shuttle windscreen to where the island was becoming visible. "They could be letting us get in close so they can shoot us down with less trouble."

"Not without a warning to surrender," another replied, "these guys are slaves to procedure, and even if they followed the warning with a missile within a second they would make the warning."

"Hmm," the first said, letting that slide as he saw the less experienced members of the team relax a little at the reassurance. He knew the obvious counterargument was that if these people were so enslaved to procedure then they'd have followed the procedure of issuing a challenge to any approaching craft, but if the greenies didn't realise this and were happier not realising this then so be it.

With a hiss of venting pneumatic air the shuttle's wings folded up and its landing gear folded down as it settled towards the platform. Some guards tried to hide their surprise and pretend they had known the shuttle was approaching. Their lack of concern was understandable though, no shuttle could have got this far without having to pass through layers of security. There were the space patrols, the air patrols, the satellite and ground-based scanners so this shuttle must be friendly… mustn't it?

A small repulsorlift pallet with crates onboard, clearly marked as containing nerf-steaks, was guided down the shuttle ramp and onto the landing platform by one of the shuttle occupants. Another two followed him down the ramp and when one of them gestured the man with the pallet began towing it across the platform towards the doors into the facility built into the sheer rock of the mountain island. A discussion began between the two men as another repulsorlift pallet was guided down the ramp.

"Excuse me, excuse me," an Imperial Lieutenant said, moving across to the shuttle with as much haste as his dignity would allow, "what do you think you are doing?"

"Delivery," said one of the men, acting as spokesman and proffering the datapad, "can you sign for it?"

The Lieutenant took the datapad and barely glanced at it before he protested. "You are in completely the wrong place," he said, his tone being enough to add _'you civilian morons'_ to his statement.

"Are we?" said the spokesman, glancing across to where the guards had stopped the man with the pallet. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," said the Lieutenant.

The man with the repulsorlift pallet abandoned it and wandered back to nearer the shuttle to find out what was going on. The guards stayed by the pallet until the argument began to become more heated as the Lieutenant tried to convince the delivery men they were in the wrong place and the delivery men's spokesman stubbornly tried to deny this. The Lieutenant could be an annoying little snot but the guards decided to make their presence felt and dissuade any physical aggression on the part of the civvies.

As those Guards joined the group and the increasing volume of the argument drew the attention of the others the second man, ignored by everybody, slid one hand along the back of the other and up into his sleeve onto a small wrist-device. Silently a panel slid open on the underside of the pallet and a tiny spider like droid dropped to the platform. It hesitated a moment as its sensors and limited brain scanned the area from under the hovering pallet and then skittered away with great speed into the facility.

A second dropped down and went through the same process of checking if anyone was watching, and then skittered away in a different direction. A third dropped out and headed for a drain, a fourth headed for the edge of the platform and then began climbing the rock. Even if you were watching the speed and small size of the droids would have made them hard to see, with unprepared and distracted guards they were almost as good as invisible. A fifth dropped down, a sixth…

"Brother," said the man with the wrist device as it signalled him by making his arm tingle, "I think the Lieutenant might be right."

"What?" said the spokesman.

"If he says this is not the place," the man said with a shrug, and clap on the spokesman's shoulder, "then it probably isn't."

"That is what I've been saying for the last few minutes," said the Lieutenant, irritated that the other man had waited until now to play the part of peacemaker.

"But…" said the spokesman, before halting himself. "Ah, I suppose you're right. And him as well. Get those pallets back on board."

After a few more minutes the shuttle lifted off and turned away towards the city where their next delivery was supposedly due. It was not likely the Lieutenant would have looked at their schedule when he had possession of the datapad but there was a small chance. Once they got out of sight though the shuttle's IFF shifted and they streaked straight up and for orbit.

"Check them," said the spokesman, who was the senior commando.

"Yes sir," replied the man who'd towed the pallet, entering commands into his console. A moment passed and then he reported, "all droids are still functional and apparently undetected. Two have found datalines but also detected security measures, one though has found an unsecured dataline."

"Have it tap in," the commander ordered.

"Aye," said the man at the console. Seconds passed, commands and feedback flickering across the screens as the droid carefully sliced into the physical line and then sliced into the virtual security. Then a flood of information began flowing through the droid and back into the shuttles computers. The wait for the download to be complete seemed interminable but with the sort of low power transmissions stealth required the rate of transfer was limited. More than two-thirds of the information had to be resent as the low power signal was corrupted or fluctuated.

"Transfer complete," the report finally came.

"Good," said the commander, "have the droids find safe hiding places and then shut down, make sure their self-destructs are online in case of discovery."

"Yes sir," replied the man, entering commands into his console and wondering how incompetent his commander thought he was to think he'd not already checked the self-destructs. "Commands sent sir."

"Excellent," said the commander, "now let's go, even Imperials can't be relied upon to stay stupid for long."

With that the commandos slipped away as quietly as they had arrived, leaving nothing but a Lieutenant puzzled at how even civilians could have been stupid enough to think they were in the right place for their delivery.


	12. Chapter 12

The high security meeting room on the Mon Calamari spaceyard was remarkably calm considering the occupants. Whether this was a tribute to Leia's skills at defusing conflict or a tribute to the professionalism of both Ackbar and Piett was debatable. It could just have been that Cracken was not there to spar with Pellaeon and Vader not there to spar with Mon Mothma. The debates between Cracken who had seen the worst of the Empire and Pellaeon who had seen the best of it could be rather heated. The debates between Mon Mothma and Vader were more polite but no less heartfelt.

There was a feeling of tension when Mon Mothma and Vader discussed things, a feeling of wondering when exactly it would be that Vader displayed his infamous temper and what the consequences would be. Leia had never felt that tension though, her instincts had been telling her that Vader had himself under control now. Telling her that after what Vader had been through that an honest discussion of politics and political systems was not a danger to his temper. Her main concern had been to avoid Vader trying to speak with her until she felt she had considered his offer long enough.

"I do have one concern," Piett said, breaking into Leia's wool gathering as he tapped the datapad with one finger, "all the forces involved in these operations are Reb… I mean, none of the forces are from those under my direct command. As we are, now, part of the Rebel Alliance it seems we should be taking part in something so major."

"For this sort of operation fighters with hyperdrive are much better suited," Ackbar replied calmly, "something which most TIEs lack."

"I understand the military logic sir," Piett said, managing for once to not stumble over calling Ackbar sir. It had taken him a while to get used to the fact he was now subordinate to Ackbar, he had no objections as he recognised the Mon Calamari's skill and seniority but his instincts had taken a little time to catch up with the rest of him.

"My objection is more a diplomatic one," Piett continued, glancing at Leia. "I agree that having the forces brought to the Alliance by Vader remain under my direct control, with you retaining your direct command of the other forces and supreme command, was the only way to handle things. However since there is still a distinction between 'my' forces and 'your' forces I think we have to consider how our subordinates will react."

Ackbar gave a deliberate human-style nod to ensure the other two understood the gesture. He was confident Leia would recognise the Mon Calamari equivalent, he was fairly confident that Piett would not. "I think, Admiral, that although we should consider our subordinates reactions that we should first consider the best military course of action," Ackbar replied, "altering those plans to avoid hurting feelings could backfire if extra losses could be blamed on these alterations."

"Aye sir," Piett said, satisfied with having done his duty by raising the concerns.

"Well gentlemen, if that is all?" Leia said, rising from her seat to her feet. Piett and Ackbar looked at her, but neither spoke. "Meeting adjourned then."

With that Leia left the room and, after a quick glance about, hurried down the corridor and deeper into the secured area where the _Executor's_ crew was being housed while their ship was refitted. Now she had made a decision she wanted to act upon it without further delay. She reached the rather anonymous looking door and hesitated for a moment over whether to activate the chime, once she did then she was committed. Her fingers were just twitching towards the touchpad when without warning the door slid open.

Leia strode through the doorway and into the surprisingly austere looking quarters within. There were no objects of art, no decorations, few pictures, and none of the luxuries that would be expected in the rooms of someone as wealthy and as powerful as Vader. Somehow though this suited him, both the man he said he was now and the man he had proved to be before. Vader glanced across towards Leia from where he was sitting on a circular seat and then looked back into the simple abstract hologram that was cycling through random flame-like patterns. Leia moved across to join him and sat on the other circular seat on the other side of the hologram and for several seconds they both sat in silence and watched the display.

"Have you considered my offer of training?" Vader asked, breaking the silence.

"You know that I have, I could hardly not consider something of such magnitude," Leia replied, "but to answer your real question I will accept training on one condition. You must be honest with me."

"What do you mean?" Vader asked, raising one bare brow.

"I may be untrained as Jedi, but not as a diplomat," Leia said, "it is obvious to me that you have more reasons for wishing to train me than you have stated, and I want to know what they are."

Vader thought for a moment, doing his best to not make it too obvious he was considering what was best to tell Leia. He knew that his main reason, the fact she was his daughter and all he had left of Padmé, would not be received with much favour. His secret reason of wanting to avoid a fearful risk would be received with even less favour still. What else could he say that would be truthful and convincing?

"The truth is that I do need your help," Vader admitted, "you know the Emperor does have force powers?"

"I have heard the rumours," Leia replied, "some have suggested that you were the one that trained and corrupted him."

For a moment Leia thought that Vader's breathmask was malfunctioning as he seemed to begin to choke, but then in disbelief she realised he was laughing in a rather undignified and uncontrolled fashion. Gradually Vader wound down until all that remained of his 'attack' was a smile which took decades off his face and showed Leia what Mon Mothma had been talking about when she warned of how charismatic Anakin Skywalker had been.

"I'd heard those rumours as well," Vader said, his smile diminishing, "but until now I had never realised just how funny they were, or indeed how much the Dark Side had affected my sense of humour."

"Funny?" asked Leia incredulously.

Her expression was enough almost provoke another burst of laughter, but Vader managed to hold onto his control however pleasant a surprise being able to laugh again had been. "I was known as the Dark Lord of the Sith, but that was never my true title. I was never more than an apprentice," he replied. "The true Dark Lord of the Sith was, and is, Darth Sideous… or as he is better known Emperor Palpatine."

"The Emperor is a Sith Lord himself?" Leia asked, years of political calculations shifting in her mind.

"He is," Vader said. "He trained Darth Maul, who was involved in the invasion of Naboo that caused the downfall of Supreme Chancellor Valorum and let Palpatine be elected in his place. He trained Darth Tyrannus who, as Count Dooku, orchestrated the Separatist movement that let Palpatine grant himself emergency powers. And he befriended a nine year old Jedi apprentice and even when that boy, now a Jedi Knight, found his mentor was a Sith he remained loyal and turned instead on his fellow Jedi."

"So, that is why you need my help?" Leia replied.

"It is," Vader said, not entirely truthfully. "When I confronted him at Endor he easily defeated me, I only survived because he wanted me to watch as the _Executor_ was destroyed. My power in the Force is not what it once was, a droid cannot touch the Force and with each piece of flesh I have lost so have I become more a machine."

"So what are you proposing I do?" Leia asked.

"There is a way I can regain much, if not all of my power in the Force," Vader said, "but I would not be able to do this alone, or at least not before the Emperor realised I was vulnerable and killed me. Even if this plan worked perfectly though defeating the Emperor alone would be by no means certain, but it could be made more so were I to have a Jedi to help me."

Leia looked at Vader a moment, she could tell he was still not being completely honest but she could also tell that whatever it was he was hiding it was a personal fear or a personal matter or both. Something to be investigated rather than something which should seriously affect her decision. Slowly Leia nodded her assent, and almost flinched at the great wave of relief that flowed from Vader as he saw her agree.

This almost made her reconsider, if training her was that important to Vader then perhaps she did need to ask more questions. But she still felt a sense of calm and rightness about this, so she accepted that she was now committed.


	13. Chapter 13

Pain had been something Vader had learned to live with every day since Mustafarr and until it had gone he had not realised just how much pain he had been in, or that the lack would make him feel like something was missing. His whole body was numb, and he did have a whole body once more. Hands the colour of cave-fish lay by his sides and beneath the bedcovers he knew there were toes the same almost dead colour.

The surgery had been radical. Even more of his damaged flesh had been sacrificed as the droids medic sliced back into his arms and legs to prepare the sites for the cloned limbs. There was a dull ache in his chest where he had been opened up like a gutted fish and had much the same process done, except that once gutted his damaged organs had been replaced with yet more cloned tissue. His lungs had been the main problem, though even with the best technology it was still simpler to replace the heart as well, but other organs had been affected by his years in the suit.

Now the healing was up to him. The cloned tissue was not truly part of him yet, the heart pumped his blood, the lungs oxygenated it, and this blood flowed through his new limbs but it was all attached to him rather than being him. Vader knew that if he could see the Force surrounding him that it would abruptly stop at shoulders and knees where the new limbs began as it had where his old metal limbs had begun. The difference was that at least these new limbs and organs had some signature in the Force, it just was not Vader's signature yet.

With yet more of his flesh lost Vader could feel that he had lost yet more power in the Force. To make matters worse he could not move, where his nerves and those of the limbs joined they would need to grow together. Someone without the Force would have been bed-bound for months as nature took its course but Vader hoped to shorten this time considerably, even if as well as trying to heal those limbs he would also have to be trying to blend the cloned flesh's Force signature into his own. Leia's help would be all that made this practical.

Alone Vader knew that he would still have been able to heal himself in body and in Force, but alone this would have taken too long. With Leia to help he would far sooner be healed enough to defend himself, especially since it had been confirmed that Mara Jade was indeed dead and had joined Luke in the Sarlaac when her corpse was dumped overboard.

Being so vulnerable, so helpless physically and in the Force, was something Vader was still having trouble with though. Memories of how powerless he had been as a slave were haunting him and making him reluctant to sleep rather than enter a trance. Fear of death was actually something new to him, he had never worried about dying but only about failing or of losing others. Being paralysed and barely able to float a cup of water across the room and to his lips was frightening, but not as frightening as the alternative.

In many ways it would have been simpler to give up his damaged body entirely. To use the technique the Emperor had stolen from the Jedi and which Darth Vader had taken from his master in his turn. Discovering that the Emperor knew a means by which his apprentice could have been reborn with all his power had shaken Vader's loyalty. Discovering a rumour that the Emperor had used this a means to be able to execute Bevel Lemisk, the Death Star's designer, more than once without losing his services had been even worse.

Palpatine had claimed more than once that Vader could not be spared long enough to have his wounds healed, and Vader had always known this was a lie and an excuse. Finding that it was possible to be transferred to a new body within minutes had proved the lie.

There was a drawback though. For however long it took for your spirit to travel from one body to the next you would exist only in the Force. The Dark Woman on Cophrigin and, so much more recently, Yoda in the hyperbaric chamber had proved that dead Jedi could also still exist in the Force. How many Jedi had Vader slaughtered over the years? How many Jedi might still survive as a spirit and unite to drag Darth Vader's spirit down to oblivion if given the chance? How much would Vader's own fear of that possibility be enough to affect the transfer?

Thanks to Leia this had not needed to be risked, and Vader was grateful for that.

She had taken to the training with all the intelligence Vader would have expected from her mother's daughter, and with all the questioning of statements he should have expected from his. However reasonable it had seemed when he was the Padawan to try to explore the implications of what Obi-Wan was saying and to try to show he was listening by asking, hopefully, insightful questions it seemed less reasonable when you were the one being questioned. He had said though that by training Leia he would be able to remind himself of what it was to be a Jedi so by challenging almost every statement and making him justify it she was being helpful in that regard.

There was a long way to go in her training still. In the month since she had accepted his offer she had learned much about how to draw on the Force and how to use it, but that knowledge was narrowly focussed on what was needed immediately.

The door hissed open, spilling light from the corridor into the darkened room, and Vader barely had time to recognise Leia's force signature before a feeling of emptiness fell over him. His perceptions narrowed to physical, suddenly the feeling of the sheets on his skin became more vivid as it became so much more of what he could feel. Leia crossed to the bed, light glinting off her eyes as tears she couldn't understand began to form. Her resolution was firm though.

"If you are going to kill me," Vader said calmly, looking up at her, "then you must make this look completely accidental."

"What?" Leia replied, her grip shifting in her pocket on the injector of poison.

"Pellaeon is not convinced by the merits of restoring the Republic, he saw too much of the old Republic's failings," Vader continued, "and Piett didn't have any choice as when I made my impetuous attack on the Emperor I also tarred those associated with me as traitors. If either of them think I have been assassinated they will damn the Alliance as incompetents. If either of them think you killed me they will damn the Alliance as murderers."

Leia looked at Vader for a moment, wondering what he was trying to accomplish.

"You must keep Piett and Pellaeon loyal to the Alliance," Vader said, "they are too valuable to be lost, and would be even more dangerous as foes. Remember they would demand a full forensic examination of my body so you would have to be careful."

"Why are you giving me this advice?" Leia asked, "Are you trying to remind me of the consequences so I will spare you?"

"If you feel you must kill me then so be it," Vader replied. "I will not argue with the will of the Force, but the will of the Force does often not take account of mortal concerns. I ask you only to be careful that you not act with haste and create problems that would be difficult to solve."

Leia looked down into Vader's eyes, looking for deceit and fear and not finding it. She had seen from Luke's example that you could train yourself to become a Jedi, she was not sure what Luke had done after Bespin but had Luke encountered someone capable of training him then surely that Jedi would have come with him to Bespin to help? It had seemed so much like justice that once Vader had awoken her power and shown her where his datafiles on the Jedi and the Force were that she should kill him for his crimes.

But the will of the Force, if that was what it was that was screaming in her mind, did not want Vader dead. Quite the contrary, ever instinct she had was telling her that killing him would be wrong. With reluctance Leia relaxed her focus.

Vader felt the Force return to him and for a moment visions of smashing Leia into the wall danced in his mind. However much he could feel he deserved death his survival instincts still wanted to react to the attack with bloody violence. Relaxation techniques forced his temper back down, that and the memory of what had happened when he had struck out in anger at Leia's mother.

"Your ability to block the Force is most impressive," Vader said, after making sure his voice remained calm, "it was as seamless as the bubble created by a Ysalamiri but not as clumsy or as random."

Leia nodded. When Vader had told her what she would be training to do and of the existence of the Ysalamiri she had asked why those could not be used instead. Vader had admitted he had considered it but had asked Leia if she would not think it strange if she saw a bubble of darkness approaching her. When Leia had nodded Vader had said it was possible to use a Ysalamiri against a Force user, but they would have to be distracted to not notice the Force-null bubble approaching them and that within that bubble nobody could use the Force.

If the Force was being blocked by another Force-user though then that block could be set up and dropped at the creator's command and be focussed to only affect those that should be affected, though the person doing the blocking would be vulnerable while they concentrated. Leia's newly trained ability to block the Force was important to the ultimate plan and important in the shorter term.

"Serenity and concentration are both important and related," Vader continued, feeling how conflicted Leia was over what she had just done. "Only when you are at peace with your decision, when you are certain of yourself and your actions, can you focus your entire will. Beware arrogance though, it can seduce you into false certainty."

"You mean by that I was being arrogant?" Leia asked, one eyebrow raising as she locked her gaze with the bedridden Vader.

After a moment Leia broke the staring match. Being so certain of what she had learned and so certain she could train herself could be self-confidence or it could be unfounded arrogance.

"It is something we will both have to be beware of," Vader admitted, "both the Jedi and the Sith can be arrogant. The Sith are certain of their own will and their manifest destiny to rule, which can blind them to alternative ideas. The Jedi are, or were, subtler in their arrogance and fell into a different trap. When you are certain that you can hear the will of the Force, that you have the insight to see the best possible solution to all problems, then if someone acts differently are they not acting foolishly?"

Vader paused until Leia nodded to show she was following the logic.

"And," Vader continued, "if someone is acting foolishly then do you not, as someone wiser, have a duty to prevent those actions? How far is a Jedi justified in going to prevent what he or she considers foolish actions, how far is a Jedi justified in feeling that their connection to the Force makes them better able to judge whether actions are foolish or not? Does it matter to the person having the solution imposed on them whether this is through the intimidation of the Sith or the stubborn cajoling of the Jedi?"

"People need the freedom to make their own mistakes," Leia said firmly.

"I agree," Vader replied, "I would not have agreed when I was your age, in fact when I was your age I was already Darth Vader and in that cursed suit. Even a few years before that when I was told the same thing by a very wise and beautiful Senator I did not agree. Over the years though I have recognised the folly of my youthful idea that everything could be made right if someone wise told everyone what to do."

Leia stared at Vader for a long time. What he was saying seemed plausible on the surface and she was relieved that he seemed to feel that way. He was telling her too much though what she wanted to hear, she could sense that he was keeping things hidden and she was concerned that his apparent conversion was not as sincere as he wanted to suggest.

Vader could feel Leia's distrust but was not surprised and did not resent it. He did not entirely trust himself so it seemed fair that she also did not.


	14. Chapter 14

The starfighters blurred across space, the greater agility of the pursued being balanced by the greater skill of the pursuer until with a flurry of orange laser fire the Z-95 Headhunter destroyed the TIE Fighter. Other Z-95s moved through the convoy that the TIE Fighters had failed to protect. Although their shields were relatively weak by modern standards they were enough to fend off the few bolts of turret fire from the freighters that managed to connect.

Captain Deyd Llnewe of the _Dominator_-class Interdictor _Shadowfall_, both formerly of Imperial service, watched this with mixed feelings. He had felt quite insulted when the Rebel Alliance had assigned Z-95s to his ship rather than something less antique but the old fighters had made short work of the convoy escort. Shorter work perhaps than the fighters he had before would have done.

Llnewe's association with Pellaeon had been remote but it had been enough for him to come under suspicion and when he managed to confirm this he had decided defection was the better part of valour. The had only been two problems. One had been the TIE Pilots. A side effect of their short life expectancy compared with fleet personnel was that they never lived long enough for all the academy nerf-shavit to wear off. They were almost as fanatical as the Stormtroopers who posed the other problem.

Thankfully both had been solved by the same expedient of inventing a major Rebel convoy. The Stormtroopers had launched in their transports ready to seize enemy craft. The TIE pilots had taken up escort positions all around those transports, Interceptors further out, Fighters on close escort, and Bombers ready to batter shields with torpedoes and carry out precision strikes on engines and weapons.

Then the _Shadowfall_ had simply shunted power from her gravity wells to her hyperdrive and left. The Stormtrooper Transports also had hyperdrives so Llnewe was confident the TIE Pilots had been rescued, though the thought of dying slowly in interstellar space as your power and air ran out was one that still gave him chills.

"Hail them again," Llnewe ordered, some irritation in his voice.

"Aye sir," said the CommScan officer.

Llnewe waited long moments while the freighters continued to move and the Z-95s continued to try to act like nerf-herders to keep them within the area of effect of the _Shadowfall's_ gravity well projectors. Having a starfighter streak past your ship's nose could be enough to make a civilian pilot flinch and turn.

"They still refuse to surrender sir," reported the officer.

The order to open fire hovered on Llnewe's lips but instead he turned to the woman beside him, more than her uniform and her gender making her look out of place on the _Shadowfall's _bridge. There was something indefinably different about her, her military posture came from a different school and on some level this was noticable.

"You have more experience with Alliance rules of engagement Lieutenant Atlan," Llnewe said, "how would they view simply opening fire and destroying the convoy?"

"It might be considered as an atrocity," Atlan said, taking her eyes away from the fighters that were her special responsibility and meeting Llnewe's gaze, "or at least as rather heavy handed."

"An atrocity?" Llnewe repeated a little incredulously. "This convoy is a military target and more than adequate warning has been given. It is their choice to not abandon ship or surrender, their choice to overload systems so ion cannon strikes would cause serious secondary damage."

"Perhaps not," Lieutenant Atlan replied, "it does not take many Imperial security personnel to hold a freighter crew hostage."

"If you are correct then the responsibility for any deaths caused would be that of the security personnel," Llnewe argued, "and we are running out of time for debate. Even with your fighters' efforts the convoy is managing to scatter and there will be reinforcements soon arriving."

"I will not order the fighters to destroy the freighters," Atlan said, "I feel it would be a clear violation of Alliance rules of engagement. If your interpretation differs then you may order the fighters to attack or order your gunners to open fire, but my protest would be on record."

Llnewe and the Lieutenant looked at each other a moment longer, the former Imperial judging how deeply Atlan believed what she was saying. She was so certain it seemed unlikely she could be wrong, or at least not wrong enough for it to make a difference…

"Very well," Llnewe said, "The Alliance has been referred to as Rebel terrorists and it is reassuring to find this is not the case. However, though pleased I am to not be part of a terrorist organisation, from the point of view of finding a simple solution I could wish for a little less moral superiority. Do as much damage as your, our, rules of engagement allow."

"Aye sir," Atlan replied, relieved that Captain Llnewe was not going to push this, "all fighters, target cargo holds. Precision strikes, repeat precision strikes cargo holds."

"Helmsman," Llnewe said, "plot the position of the freighters and maintain position on the adjusted centre."

The Z-95s swept around, abandoning their harassing passes and falling back into flights. They had at least been refitted to carry proton torpedoes rather than the lighter faster but weaker concussion missiles so they would have considerable firepower. The problem was that to strike with precision they would have to close to close range and much of the damage would have to be done with laser fire.

Meanwhile the _Shadowfall's_ engines glowed brighter as the Helmsman moved her in a little. The freighters were not dispersing in a uniform pattern, more were going in some directions than others. It was fairly simple though to estimate each freighters importance and rather than head for the centre of them head for where the most freighters could be kept within the gravity well for longest.

Quartets, pairs, and even single torpedoes streaked in against the freighters. Shields collapsed and weak civilian grade armour ruptured and spilled cargo out into space. Some of these strikes were quite spectacular but Atlan and Llnewe both knew that it was the less spectacular that were the more likely to be effective. Most of the cargo the freighters were carrying would not be affected by being exposed to vacuum. What the fighters needed to do was punch torpedoes into the holds where when they detonated the force of the explosion would be contained and would smash and melt the pieces of cargo into each other.

Melting the entire cargo section of the freighters with turbolaser fire from the _Shadowfall_ would also have been effective, if less precise.

"Gunnery officer," Llnewe said as he grew tired of watching, "do we have any options to assist?"

"Barring full scale barrages," the gunnery officer replied, frowning at his console a little, "not many. Those freighter are evading and turbolaser bolts take time to travel so to be sure of hitting only cargo holds we would have to be very close to the target. We could aim at the larger cargo containers that have been released, but those, the freighters, and our fighters are intermixed so we'd risk causing friendly as well as enemy casualties."

"Lieutenant Atlan," Llnewe said, turning back to look at her, "warn your pilots that if their sensors discover a vital cargo that the _Shadowfall_ will open fire and that they will need to clear a line of sight."

Atlan paused, hoping that Llnewe's definition of a vital cargo was the same as hers, before nodding. "Aye sir."

Another freighter swelled like a toad as a torpedo inflated its belly. Fire seeped between the seams of the plates for a moment before dying away. There had probably been casualties on that, and the other freighters, but however much you aimed for the ideal of no civilian casualties most people with combat experience knew that much of the time all you could hope for was to minimise them.

Time passed by. More freighter were attacked, more cargo spilt into space, and the _Shadowfall's_ turbolasers finally got some use as some Z-95s managed to shoot away the couplings holding freight containers onto container transports. Although it was somewhat satisfying to see those containers being melted into distorted blobs riddled with holes Llnewe and Atlan both knew the valuable cargoes would be in the more heavily armoured freighters.

Then time ran out.

"Star Destroyer in area," reported the CommScan officer.

"What type?" Llnewe asked, after waiting a moment for his officer to continue.

"Imperial-II class," replied CommScan, "bearing 230 by 45."

Llnewe nodded, that was too strong to fight. The _Dominator_-class Interdictor was based on the Imperial-class Star Destroyer spaceframe so if the arrival had been a Victory class or similar then his ship would have had the advantage in shielding and firepower. The gravity well generators and other equipment did take up a lot of room though, more room than had been made by removing the heavy ground assault equipment and reducing the troop complement to that needed for boarding operations. An Imperial-II would heavily outgun the _Shadowfall_.

"Helmsman, full ahead," Llnewe said, deciding there was enough of an angle to prevent the enemy getting a clean shot at his ships engines, "engineer, power to hyperdrive and engines. Lieutenant Atlan, can your pilots rendezvous or do we need to recover them here?"

"A short hop would be possible sir," Atlan replied.

"Coordinate with helm then," Llnewe ordered.

"Enemy fighters launching," CommScan reported, "TIE Interceptors forming up around TIE Bombers."

"Lieutenant Atlan," Llnewe said, waiting for Atlan to raise her head from her discussion before continuing, "have your pilots threaten to attack the enemy fighters. I don't want them to actually engage, but the more the enemy feels they have to take all precautions rather than rushing in the longer we have before they attack."

"Aye sir," Atlan replied, nodding.

The Z-95s began to feint and retreat at the TIEs, drawing the two squadrons of Interceptors into moving closer to the Rebel fighters. The TIE Bombers were still well protected though as TIE Fighters had been launched to take over the close escort. If Llnewe had intended his fighters to attack then this would have been a good decision, but as it was the time it took to launch the TIE Fighters was just more time for the _Shadowfall's_ hyperdrive to charge.

Movement on the tactical plot on the datapad he held drew his eye, and Llnewe made a noise of understanding. Atlan glanced back at him and Llnewe nodded to her.

"It seems you were right Lieutenant," Llnewe said, holding the datapad out for Atlan to take. "The freighters are moving into our path to block us."

Atlan looked at the datapad and then back at Llnewe, waiting for him to continue.

"Freighter crews are a great many things," Llnewe explained, "but, if there is one thing I learned on years of patrol and inspection duty, it was that freighter crews are not inclined to help the Imperial Starfleet. Putting their ships in our path when this is almost suicidal is not something a freighter captain would do, if he was the one in command of his vessel."

Llnewe looked at the freighters trying to form a wall in space and took a moment to consider which way to turn. The formation was still broader than it was deep so that meant up or down was better. Down would make it a stern chase, which would keep the enemy ship further away but expose the _Shadowfall's_ engines. Up would mean the ISD-II could cut inside the _Shadowfall_ and close the distance, but deny them the engine shot.

"Helmsman, change course," Llnewe ordered, "ninety-degree up, roll to put our port side to the enemy. Engineer, concentrate shield power port. Gunnery Officer, target the enemy ship but do not power heavy turbolasers. Priority is point defence and keeping power reserves for rebuilding shields."

The officers acknowledged their orders and the _Shadowfall_ began to climb and roll, even with the extensive superstructure and the bulk of the domes she was still a slenderer target from the side than if her dorsal surface had been exposed.

"Lieutenant Atlan," Llnewe said, a small part of his mind noticing that he was continuing to call her by rank and name rather than by position, "have the Z-95s proceed to the rendezvous, no point in them getting enmeshed in a dogfight."

"They could still disrupt the enemy strike," Atlan replied, "sir."

"You have your orders Lieutenant," Llnewe said firmly, relenting a moment later to add, "the _Shadowfall_ can weather one or two strikes so best to preserve the fighters for when they are more needed."

"Aye sir," said Atlan.

One by one the Z-95s twinkled away into hyperspace and seeing this retreat the TIE Interceptors increased to maximum velocity in an attempt to engage. Even with their remarkable speed though they failed, the last Z-95 exiting a full minute before the lead Interceptor would have come within extreme firing range.

The TIE Bombers also increased to their maximum velocity and, without the threat of the Z-95s, began to spread out to make the _Shadowfall's_ gunners have to deal with torpedoes coming in from a wider range of angles. The best tactic depended on the target, if it had a lot of guns then it could be better to try to overwhelm one area with a concentrated barrage. If it had fewer guns though then trying to make sure that each gun could only engage a few torpedoes by spreading them out could be more effective.

Torpedoes streaked away and in towards the _Shadowfall_, the TIE Bombers slowing and looping away to cautiously avoid entering the _Shadowfall's_ medium turbolaser range. Methodically the gunnery officer, his subordinates, and their computers worked through the threat ratings so that when, a few seconds later, the torpedoes entered light turbolaser range they were ready.

Emerald bolts flurried out at the torpedoes from the fast firing anti-fighter / anti-missile weapons and fireballs began to blossom as torpedoes and turbolaser bolts met. Even with the skill of the _Shadowfall's _gunners the barrage had been enough well timed and aimed though that a few torpedoes slipped through chinks in the web of fire and smashed into the interdictor's shields.

"Report," Llnewe demanded as his ship shuddered slightly.

"Some shield penetration," replied the Engineer, "no armour penetration , no internal damage."

"Good" Llnewe said, looking at the TIE Bombers as they continued their turns to come back around for another salvo.

"Enemy Star Destroyer continuing to close," reported the CommScan officer, "firing range in three minutes."

A discreet chime came from the engineering station.

"Hyperdrive is charged," said the Engineer, a look of relief not quite hidden on his face.

"Helmsman," Llnewe said, "take us out."

"Aye sir."

There was a sense of tension about the _Shadowfall_ as it almost seemed to crouch and gather its power and then with a flash from its engines it was away into hyperspace, leaving convoy wreckage and some frustrated Imperials behind. Llnewe felt pleased with how the mission had gone, with luck they had done enough damage that future convoys would be more military and thus although tougher targets also targets that could be engaged.


	15. Chapter 15

Piett turned as the tall form of the former Dark Lord of the Sith strode on to the bridge of the _Executor_ and crossed to join him beside the forward viewports. For a moment there was silence aside from the noise of the breathmask cycling and of the bridge crew working.

"Report."

"Sir, all systems are operational," Piett replied, "the Mon Calamari did a fine job, our shakedown cruise is proceeding without problems."

"Excellent."

There was another pause.

"I will be in my quarters Admiral."

"Yes sir," Piett replied, turning slightly to watch as the figure turned and strode away, light glinting off its bare scalp.

=x=x=

As Leia approached Vader's quarters she felt a little uneasy. Even if these uniforms had been altered to be more reminiscent of the Old Republic designs she had still grown up associating them with the Empire and with that government's harsh philosophy. Visiting Vader in temporary quarters on an Alliance spacedock was a little tense, visiting him in his own quarters on his own flagship while that ship was deep in space was worse even though she knew intellectually it made no difference.

The Stormtrooper sentry outside Vader's quarters nodded to Leia and then turned and activated the wall comm. He could have just used his helmet systems but as Leia listened to him request admittance and the reply granting this she appreciated the courtesy of the Stormtrooper making the exchange audible to her as well. The door hissed open and Leia walked in.

As the door shut again what looked like Vader nodded his head to her from where he was standing.

"Princess, how good to see you again," he said in a deep intimidating but somehow prissy voice.

Leia nodded in acknowledgement and continued past and to the bedroom. There lying on the bed was the deathly pale figure of the real Vader. Behind Leia the decoy Vader-droid shuffled off to busy itself with something else.

Making a droid physically resemble him had not been hard and Vader had taken a certain joy before the surgery to remove them in designing how his prosthetics could be modified to form part of the droid. With the severity of his injuries and the extent of his armour there had not needed to be much exposed flesh so little had needed to be grown and the vocoder that had amplified Vader's seared vocal cords had proved equally valuable providing a voice for the droid.

The main problem would have been in making it interact with people in a believable manner. Trying to duplicate a personality was far harder than trying to duplicate a physical appearance. With the cooperation of Admiral Piett though it had been possible to carefully script the exchanges so that both the Admiral and the droid followed a prepared routine. There were few people onboard who would try to make conversation with Vader so there was little chance of the droid needing to act spontaneously. Even so every appearance by the droid was a risk, and the longer it was used the more likely it would be revealed as a droid and, as Vader had said, the Emperor learn that for some reason Vader was not able to appear in public.

Leia sat herself down into the chair by the bed, Vader's eyes fluttering open as he sensed her presence and came out of the light healing trance he had been in. As he came back to himself he realised his new hair was itching and this reminded him of the cosmetic surgery they had also performed. He had not asked for this but Leia had been dismissive of his reaction, telling him he would not hide behind his scars the same way as he'd hidden behind his mask. This had seemed a strange comment to Vader until Leia pointed out that if he had scars he could point to them to show people he had suffered. Without them he'd have to work a little harder to show he was truly reformed.

Vader had not completely agreed with that reasoning, he knew it was a symptom of arrogant self-confidence but he found it hard to care about the opinion of the sort of people who could be swayed by something so superficial. He did know as well though that he needed to concern himself with popular opinion as well as that of people like Piett, Mon Mothma, and especially Leia who he respected. Although often irritating and overshadowed by his problems hiding his marriage to Padmé there had been a certain satisfaction in being lauded as the Hero without Fear, and it had felt cleaner than being feared as the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Vader dropped his shields to let Leia see how much improved he was since the previous day. Leia focussed for a moment, her eyes squinting slightly as she used the sight of the Force instead.

"Hmm," Leia commented, "seems like soon you will be strong enough in the Force to not need my help."

"Even the strongest need help," Vader replied. "The path of the Jedi is not a solitary one. Had I remembered that and asked for help from Obi-Wan or Yoda, rather than trying to gain the power through the Dark Side to solve my problems alone, then history would have been very different."

Leia nodded, wondering if this was a trait of all Jedi Masters or Sith Lords that they took so many opportunities to lecture. Then she prepared herself and let the revitalising power of the Force flow through her and into Vader. He added his own strength and together they wove a cocoon of light around his body, bringing Vader's mind and transplanted bodyparts closer into balance and stimulating and weaving nerves into working together as well as being attached to each other.

A non-Force-user in this situation would not have had the problem of needing to harmonise Force signatures, once the transplants were physically working that would be all they needed. Conversely though the side effects of all the drugs and treatments that would be needed to make their nerves grow would have been severe, and especially if they had undergone as much surgery as Vader, so they would have had the same amount of problems just different ones.

Time passed and then Leia felt a crick in her neck. Almost without thought she eased this pain and manipulated the crick with the Force to relieve the effects of having been sitting in one position for hours. Vader turned his own attention inwards for a moment again and flexed his fingers where his arms lay beside him and wiggled his toes beneath the covers.

"These feel much more a part of me," Vader said, "not just prosthetics of flesh."

On a whim he reached up, the movement of the arm rather clumsy, and brushed two fingertips across Leia's cheek. She surprised them both by not recoiling in disgust from that touch, perhaps because the mental contact had been a deeper one.

"You don't know just how precious the sense of touch can be," Vader continued, letting his arm slump back down to the bed, "how different feeling with your own fingers and seeing with your own eyes is from feeling with artificial fingertips and seeing things only through the lenses of a helmet."

Leia nodded. "Could that be why the Emperor had not allowed you the surgery?"

Vader looked at Leia for a moment, trying to follow her chain of thought and trying to remember the last time someone, other than the Emperor, had outthought him. "You're probably right," Vader said slowly, working things out as he spoke, "or as right as I had been. I had thought the Emperor was frightened that should I regain my power I would overthrow him, but he is subtle and is proud of the results he can get through his manipulation. Joy is anathema to the Dark Side, dark glee at an opponent's fate feeds it but joyousness destroys it. If my body had no longer been imprisoned then that might have freed my spirit as well."

"Or you might have fallen further," Leia replied, "your armour may have cut you off from gentler feelings but those are not the only feelings you would have had. As well as your lust for power and your lust for victory you would have had other lusts as well."

Vader opened his mouth to protest, he was no Hutt to keep slave-whores and torture prisoners for pleasure. When he, or rather Darth Vader, had tortured someone it was done for sound reasons. For information, as a deterrent to others, or in the case of Captain Solo to send his pain into the Force to draw Luke. But, given Leia's experience with the seedier more pathetic sort of Imperial, she could be right.

Darth Vader had tried to be a warrior, to seek worthy opponents and fight them openly and with some honour. Would this discipline have stood if he'd had more temptations to resist? Vader feared not. In the suit he had spared a Rebel starfighter as being too little challenge and beneath him to kill. But during the brief time he had been a Sith before Mustafarr he had slaughtered younglings who were no challenge. Perhaps he would have continued along that even darker path. Some of the most evil men had been aesthetes, motivated only by their beliefs and desire for power, but equally some had been hedonists who took advantage of their power to satisfy their lusts and Vader had met both.

Vader sat up and started to swing his legs around off the bed, both a clumsy process. Leia stepped back as the Vader-droid shuffled into the room to take one of Vader's elbows to assist and help more with balance than strength. Vader stood, and then staggered noticeably on his feet as his knees suddenly wobbled. His eyes were drawn to where Leia was calmly watching him.

"You were using the Force," Leia said, inclining her head and one elbow like a schoolmarm accusing a naughty pupil.

"I was not…" Vader began to deny, before stopping. "Considering the evidence, that I nearly fell over when you blocked it, you are probably right."

With the assistance of the droid, who kept up a steady stream of encouraging murmured comments, Vader tottered over to the exercise machine and got himself braced into it before starting to work. The exercise would serve a dual purpose, it would maintain and build his physical strength and the more he used his new limbs and organs the more his body became used to them and the more a part of his body they became. The problem was that Vader needed to exercise his physical body alone, not to be aiding it with the Force.

"To a Jedi," Vader said, able to speak fairly normally as he'd only just started, "using the Force should be so instinctive that ideally you should not realise you are using it. Should be no more something to think about than shifting position slightly if something is just out of reach of your fingertips."

"You have said that before," Leia replied, keeping a light block on the Force around Vader. This block was not strong enough to prevent him reaching the Force, but it was strong enough that he'd consciously notice he was trying to do this.

"It bears repeating," Vader said, beginning to breathe more heavily and thinking of how much endurance he had when he was younger. "The Force is not something external or new, it is part of every living thing and shapes us even if we do not consciously know it. The Force can influence what talents we have, and then what talents we have can influence how we consciously use the Force to enhance them. The Jedi of the Old Order took children when they were very young, often when they were babies, so that they would learn the Force as something as natural to them as learning to walk or speak."

"Is that what happened to you?" Leia asked, diplomatic manners and personal curiosity in agreement.

"I was recruited late," Vader replied between puffs, "I was nine when a Jedi Master called Qui-Gon Jinn discovered me on Tatooine, helped me win my freedom, and took me to Coruscant and the Jedi Temple."

"Freedom?" Leia said.

"I was a slave," Vader replied, "as was my mother until Cleig Lars freed her, something I regret I was not the one to do."

"You say you won your freedom," Leia noted, "how?"

"I was, and as far as I know still am, the only human ever to take part in pod racing," Vader said, a smile coming to his face as he remembered something he could in good conscience be proud of. "Master Qui-Gon wagered with my owner that I would win the Boonta Eve race, which I did and which won him the parts he needed to fix his ship as well."

"A Jedi Master wagered?" Leia repeated, this not fitting with the image her father had given her of the Jedi.

"Even under the Republic Tatooine was run by the Hutts," Vader pointed out, "so Qui-Gon had to rely on his wits. If it is any consolation though your attitude was shared by his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi and the dignitary they had rescued and were trying to escort to Coruscant."

"If that 'dignitary' is who I think it was," Leia replied, names and dates coming together in her mind, "then it might have been better if they had failed."

"Perhaps," Vader said, using the excuse of being out of breath to pause before replying but actually needing the moment to control his temper and the urge to strongly defend his angel. "The point I was going to make though was that by racing pods I could please my master and make him less likely to sell me or my mother, so my skills as a pilot developed. You, growing up as the daughter of a Viceroy…"

Leia tensed at the reminder of Alderaan and Bail Organa, remembering that this fairly calm, though she had sensed the spike of emotion the moment before, and seemingly wise mentor figure was or had been a monster. Sometimes it was becoming hard to remember or connect this Vader with the black armoured demon he had been.

"….did not have much call for piloting skill," Vader continued, "so your ability to sense what people want and to persuade them to your point of view developed and you became a Senator and leader."

Leia nodded, her thoughts still on Alderaan. Vader could almost see the images of destruction projected across Leia's mind and felt both regret and relief. Regret that he had reminded Leia of what he had been. Relief that her distraction by those memories meant she was less likely to have noticed him having stopped himself from saying that she had got her diplomatic skills from her mother.


	16. Chapter 16

Boba Fett glanced around himself as he moved through the dark alleyways of the Smuggler's Moon. His helmet hid the movement of his eyes so this did not make him appear less confident, but did let him be watchful for trouble. He was not accustomed to having to worry about being the hunted, there were few people in the Galaxy who would be stupid enough to attack him, but with Vader's actions things had shifted slightly.

Although Fett could not fault Vader's good sense in having hired the best those times he had hired Fett he did wish that Vader had not required his services even once. As it was Fett had worked for Vader enough times that the split between the Dark Lord and the Emperor had caused some Imperials to regard Fett with even more suspicion than normal. There were secrets Fett knew that would be a death sentence if it was known that he knew them, the last thing he wanted was for some eager Imperial to start digging and discover this.

The apartment block was dark, a quick thermal scan showed only one heat source and other scans showed only things associated with that source. It did look like the man in there was alone but Fett ran a quick weapons check just in case there was something concealed. This done he moved in and across the darkened hallway to the room they were to meet in.

As Fett entered he clicked on the powerful light he'd mounted on his blaster, dazzling the man's dark-adapted eyes as he shone it in his face. To Fett's slight surprise the man did not raise a hand to shield his eyes, he kept them relaxed at his sides and near his weapons.

"Boba Fett I presume?" the man said.

"That's right," Fett replied, "Imperial Intelligence?"

"That's right," said the man, deliberately echoing Fett, "and I have an offer for you."

"Go on," Fett said, lowering his blaster slightly.

"If you accept this assignment then you will regain as much of our trust as you ever had," the man continued, "if you decline then you will be declared an Enemy of the Empire and be hunted down. Your assignment will be to track down Vader, infiltrate the _Executor,_ and kill him,"

"Suicide or be hunted down," commented Fett, "sounds like a poor choice."

"Not so," the man replied, "our intelligence reports are that Vader is vulnerable for a short time. More details are on this datacylinder."

The muzzle of Fett's blaster tracked the man as he slowly reached for his belt pocket, withdrew the datacylinder, and slowly placed it on the floor before stepping back away from it. Fett paused for a moment.

"Turn around," Fett ordered before, once the man had obeyed, taking a quick step forward, stooping for a second, and stepping back all in one motion. "I'll view the information," Fett continued, "but what I do with it is my business. I'll do whatever gives me the best chance of survival whether that is trying to kill Vader or trying to avoid you Imperials."

The man glanced back over his shoulder at Fett and nodded before saying "I wouldn't expect anything else."

As Fett backed out of the room, continuing to keep his blaster on the man, the man turned away again and smiled almost imperceptibly with satisfaction.

=x=x=

Fett was feeling concerned again. Whether it was that they hadn't tried to track him or that he'd not managed to detect the trackers would give him the same zero result. He'd transferred the data from the datacylinder onto a fresh one and then attached the datacylinder he'd been given to a passing droid, so if there had been a beacon in the datacylinder it was now heading a different way from him. There could still be someone trying to follow him though.

He remained in the shadows a moment and took a feed from Slave One's sensors to check if there had been any visitors or if there were any still there. Both negative he crossed the small amount of open ground he'd needed for landing clearance to his ship as the ramp lowered. Almost before he was in the ramp was rising again and the hatch resealing. Quickly Fett headed up to the cockpit, ran through his pre-launch, and coaxed Slave One up into the dirty air.

Like a misshapen stone Slave One dropped off the edge of the platform and deeper into the abandoned depths of the city. Fett wove through the rotting bridges and walkways the same way his father had flown through the Genosis asteroid belt and for the same reason. Internal and external scans showed no beacons attached to his ship and no craft attempting to follow him. Fifty and then a hundred miles separated him and the meeting place and then Boba pulled back on the controls and headed for space.

Various pieces of traffic had to evade as Slave One streaked upwards, though the protests were muted as they recognised who had just burned past them. Fett paid no heed to these people, his attention was for any Imperial ships or any craft that were changing course to follow. Again there seemed none so as he passed outside the gravity well of the Smugglers Moon Fett engaged his hyperdrive.

As the blues smoothed themselves past the canopy Fett reached for a datapad to slot the copied datacylinder in to. He was not going to risk that as well as the data he had copied a hidden program that would try to slice into his ships systems if he plugged the datacylinder into his console. Behind his helmet his jaw dropped slightly as rather than text a face appeared, and as he recognised that face both from more recently and from long ago. It was Vader.

_It is true that I am more vulnerable_, the recording began, holding up a hand to show flesh rather than metal, _as I am recovering from major surgery. The lie was to let you think the man you were meeting was from Imperial Intelligence. He was one of my agents not Palpatine's. I know a lot about you Boba Fett, I was there on Genosis when your father was killed, my Jedi Master was the one who discovered you and him living on Kamino and forced you to flee._

_I wonder though if you know as much about me, whether you learned who it was that became Darth Vader and slaughtered his fellow Jedi?_

_His name was Anakin Skywalker. His son, who was hidden from him, from me, when he was a baby, was Luke Skywalker._

_Without the actions of the Emperor's agent my son would have gained his lightsaber, without your actions he would have escaped even without it in his hand. The Emperor's agent died there on the sailbarge. Jabba died at my hands. I plan to kill the Emperor. That only leaves you._

Fett wondered how Vader planned to track him down…

_By now you should be noticing the first symptoms…_

… what?

_… as the virus would have been absorbed even through your gloves thanks to the nanotech delivery system. There is no antidote and no treatment for it, but my agent will not suffer as it is a very special virus. During the clone wars the Separatists tried to counter the Grand Army of the Republic by developing a bio-weapon and it amused the Emperor to have this development completed. Any clone of Jango Fett would be vulnerable, even an unaltered one such as you, but anyone else would be safe._

_Die._

With that last word the datapad went blank. Fett looked at it for a moment, having the urge to press his blaster muzzle against it and fire, but then he felt a sudden muscle spasm. With speed rather than haste Fett unbuckled from his pilots chair and hurried to his autodoc. He stripped off one gauntlet and rolled up the armoured sleeve to expose his skin. Without hesitation and without wincing he stabbed the needles into his arm so they could sample and treat him and then settled back into the autodoc to let it scan him better.

With his other hand Fett set the autodoc to begin filtering his blood and purging poisons and infections. The tubes twitched as the autodoc began to pump in unison with Fett's heart and his blood began passing through that little extra distance. Fett grunted as fire seemed to creep across his skin, for a moment his surroundings dimmed with the pain, and then he looked down at his exposed arm. To his horror blisters were starting to form and ooze as if he'd been caught in his own flamethrower or was being digested by something.

Without panic Fett entered fresh commands into the autodoc which began trying to treat those symptoms.

=x=x=

The Stormtrooper Transport made a very cautious approach to Slave One. How command had known where it would come out of hyperspace on automatic they didn't know, but they did know that it seemed more likely that Fett could be playing dead rather than actually being dead. Any moment now Slave One might power up and send cannon bolts straight through them.

To the surprise of the pilot and the lesser surprise of the troops from the 501st, since they had more faith in Vader, they managed to dock without incident. The boarding airlock cut through the hull and the Stormtroopers entered, hand gestures and short range comm transmissions letting them do this in silence. Slave One was not a large ship so it did not take them long to find their target.

As they looked at the corpse hanging against the autodoc restraints and how the single piece of flesh they could see had been eaten away they were glad that they had a droid to strip the body. Vader might have reassured them the disease would only affect clones of the old Clonetrooper breed, rather than the non-cloned troopers that were now more common, but they simply didn't want to have to touch that.


	17. Chapter 17

Leia walked along the corridor towards the _Executor's_ bridge, slowly she was becoming more used to the modified Imperial uniforms or perhaps her training was giving her better control of her instinctive reactions. She had always known intellectually that not everyone who served the Empire was evil, or a fool, or an evil fool, but this had sometimes been hard to remember.

She paused in her stride and her thoughts as, from around a corner, she heard her name mentioned. She frowned and a fire that any member of the Rebel Alliance that had crossed her would have recognised came into her brown eyes as she heard what was being said. There seemed to be two crewmen gossiping and the subject of their gossip seemed to be the relationship between her and Vader. Their speculation on what exactly Vader was teaching her during those hours alone in his quarters was bad enough. Leia was not sure why her instincts were so repulsed at the idea of a sexual relationship between her and him, it seemed to go beyond the fact that Vader was Vader.

What angered her more was their discussion of if she ever wore something similar to what rumour had it she was wearing when rescued. The reminder of Han and Luke and Chewbacca, the reminder of those days held as toy to Jabba, and the reminder of how helpless she had felt cut deep. A prickle of rage seeped up the back of her neck.

Leia stepped around the corner, the happiness of the conversation of the crewmen faltering at the expression on her face as they wondered how much she had heard. The two crewmen exchanged nervous glances as Leia looked at them and then began to smile, it was an attractive smile but then many predators were also attractive.

"Would you like a demonstration of what Vader has taught me?" Leia asked, looking up slightly through her eyelashes and using her diplomatic skills to make her tone a sexy one.

The crewmen were not stupid enough that they did not sense the trap, they glanced at each other again, but one decided…with a nervous smile… to say "erm, yes?"

Leia felt completely calm and dispassionate. Her anger and grief were still there but she had regained her mastery over them so they would serve her rather than she serve them. Vader had told her of how before he had become a Sith he had felt like there was a dragon within him. A dragon he needed to gain power against to shackle or destroy, and that it was only when he awoke, almost destroyed, in the suit he had realised that dragon was him. That by gaining power he had only strengthened it as well.

Self-knowledge was the key to self-control. Denying that you had darkness within you would leave you as weakened by inner conflict as Darth Vader had been by his denial of his guilt and of the remaining light within himself. Being at peace with yourself was the first step to the serenity you would need to be at peace with your decisions. Of course this could cut both ways, the Emperor had long ago achieved his own self-knowledge and purging of inner conflict. Being at peace with yourself and your decisions did not determine that those decisions had to be one that served the Light.

Leia remembered how people had reacted to her when she started speaking in the senate. How they underestimated her due to her youth and it was only when she had proven herself in several debates that she gained respect and proved she was not a mouthpiece for her father's thoughts. She made a small gesture with one finger towards the increasingly nervous crewmen.

As if the artificial gravity had malfunctioned in a spectacular manner the two men streaked up off the deck and bounced from the walls of the corridor and on up to and off the ceiling. In mid-air they collided again so they landed in a combined sprawling heap in the middle of the corridor. They started to disentangle themselves but heard a distinctive sound and froze. Slowly their heads turned and they looked up at Leia, along the white-blue blade of her lightsaber and into her unamused face.

"Did you enjoy that demonstration?" Leia asked sweetly.

The crewman that had spoken before grunted slightly as his friend nudged him to answer. "Erm. No Ma'am," he said in a rather different tone.

"I believe you would have work to do?" Leia said.

"Yes Ma'am," the crewman said.

Leia gestured with her lightsaber and the crewmen got up, coming almost to attention as they came to their feet. Leia looked up at them, they were both almost a foot taller than her but they both had the same sort of expression they'd have had when facing a senior NCO that could bench-press a Juggernaut. Leia deactivated her lightsaber, but did not put it back on her belt.

"Oh," she added, as if an after-thought, "as well as telekinesis I have also learned to gain intuition through the Force. Would you like to know what my intuition tells me about how Vader would react to this sort of gossip?"

"With respect Ma'am," said the one crewman, coming even more to attention, "I think we can guess."

"Carry on then," Leia said with a small wave of her hand."

"Yes ma'am," said the crewmen, hurrying away as quickly as military protocol would allow.

Leia watched them go, that had seemed a good way to demonstrate she was not a toy for their lord's pleasure, and indeed the Force did tell her it was less painful than Vader had heard them saying the same sort of things. It had been a little too enjoyable though, there had been a little part of her that had relished the surprise and flash of fear from the crewmen. However she did not feel like another lecture on the temptations of the Dark Side so best not mentioned.

=x=x=

Vader glanced round from where he was standing with Piett as Leia came onto the bridge. His new hair itched beneath the skincap with the moulded scars and having gone through so much to regain the ability to breathe unaided the dummy breathmask was even more irritating than the rest of the makeup he was wearing to simulate his previous appearance. He trusted his people on the _Executor_ but secrecy was essential until he was full recovered, and perhaps even after that.

Piett also glanced around and nodded in formal welcome as Leia joined them.

"Report," Leia said, still a little preoccupied with the incident in the corridor.

Piett looked at Vader for a moment in surprise at being treated as a subordinate. Vader gave a fractional nod.

"We are on final approach to the asteroid belt," Piett replied, "no artificial objects or energy emissions on sensors."

Leia gave a half-smile of thanks and apology as she realised from Pietts emotions, though not his expression which was calm and respectful, how brusque her tone had been. Vader looked away and through the forward viewport, his eyes going a little unfocussed as he reached out with the Force.

"Can you feel that Princess?" Vader asked.

"No…ah," Leia replied, her senses following the path Vader was marking in the force, "yes, I feel that now."

"The cloaked autominers are out there," Vader said, raising his hand and pointing, "it was too much to hope we would stumble across one while it was briefly uncloaked to scan asteroid positions and update its fellows. No matter, set course that way please Admiral."

"Maybe a little to port?" Leia asked.

"No," Vader replied slowly as he concentrated, "I think that group is further away, though there are more of them so they feel almost the same. Try to sense the relative motion, that will help judge the distance."

Piett gave them both a strange look before turning to look at the helmsman, "Set course 045 by 020, half speed ahead."

The _Executor_ slowly entered the asteroid belt and Piett remembered the pounding they had taken the last time they entered one of this extremely unusual density. For a field of this density to be present a planet must have present and broken up relatively recently on a galactic timescale, but Piett knew this planet had broken up recently on a human timescale as well. Hopefully Leia would not recognise any constellations and there would not be any distinctive debris to be seen.

Piett found it rather abhorrent that the bones of Alderaan were being picked to build another of the superweapons that had killed her so how Leia would react he could not imagine. It was ironic in a way that by his actions the Emperor had given a grain of truth to the cover story publicised when the existence of the first Death Star had become known. Breaking up uninhabited worlds so they could be mined more easily, so the veins of ore buried deep in their crusts and the metals of their cores had been exposed, had seemed plausible if you didn't think about it too much.

Or about why such a device would have such a name or be used on a planet with a population the size of Alderaan's.

Hoping Leia would remain ignorant of where exactly they were Piett turned his thoughts away from this and to more immediate concerns. This did also remind him of the pursuit of her from Hoth and of something that needed to be done.

"Gunnery officer," Piett ordered, "have primary batteries begin tracking any asteroids large enough and that will pass close enough to pose a threat."

"Aye sir."

_Executor's _shields could take a hit from an asteroid large and fast enough to pulverise a smaller Star Destroyer, as had happened to some of the smaller ships during the Hoth pursuit. However the bridge tower was very similar to that of those smaller ships and seeing the holo-transmission of a fellow Captain splutter and fade as he died when his ship was decapitated Piett saw no need to take chances.

The silence lengthened as Piett patiently waited for Vader, or perhaps Leia, to provide some firing coordinates. The pair of Force-users just continued though to stare out into space as the _Executor_ continued on her course, then suddenly Vader pointed again.

"There," he said.

"Gunnery officer," Piett translated, "target 340 by 005."

Vader looked at Piett and then at Leia before speaking. "This is like a great many things when using the Force," he told them, addressing Leia but knowing Piett was listening as well, "you have to trust your instincts and simply try to make it feel right."

Piett did not feel that convinced, he had seen enough to know what the Force could do but he preferred something a little more tangible to rely on. On the other hand he certainly was not going to protest, however reformed Vader was he was still Vader and there was still the rumour about what he had done on the first Death Star when the Force had been questioned there.

"Does this feel right to you Princess?" Vader asked.

"Yes," Leia replied, nodding.

"Fire," Vader said, looking down into the crewpit at the Gunnery officer.

Medium Turbolaser bolts streaked out in a fairly wide pattern. Like his Admiral the Gunnery Officer was not going to question Vader but given the scope for imprecision he had decided to spread his fire a little to ensure a hit. Vader decided not to be insulted, he was more interested in watching the turbolaser bolts and seeing where they would vanish.

To his pleasure Vader saw that it was the emerald fire in the centre of the barrage that winked out and it was in the centre that there was a brief glimpse of an autominer in the moment between when its cloak failed and when it exploded. Most ships would have had more trouble destroying a droid craft of that size, especially when using secondary weapons, but the _Executor_ accomplished it with ease. As the fireball and debris that had been a robotic miner based on the Dreadnought spaceframe, though lacking the massive armour and shields, began to dissipate Vader closed his eyes again and pointed again.

"There."

"Gunnery officer, target 005 by 030."

"Fire."

This time the Gunnery Officer had learned his lesson and the barrage was more concentrated. Another autominer blinked into visibility and then into an explosion.

"Admiral," Vader said, "have sensors analyse the debris, the asteroids, and any drive trails they can find."

"Aye sir," Piett said, looking at his CommScan officer who nodded to show he had heard and then had his sensor operators set to work.

"There," Leia said, pointing.

Piett hesitated, but had faith and translated that direction for his gunnery officer.

"Fire."

To Leia's carefully hidden satisfaction the gunnery officer obeyed her and the barrage was another direct hit.

"Excellent," Vader commented.

The two Force-users settled into a routine, without verbal communication Vader began concentrating to port and Leia to starboard. Again and again the _Executor's_ turbolasers reached out and destroyed another autominer. As this continued though and the number of kills began to mount well into double figures Vader began to feel the years slip away as if he was stuck back doing drills under Obi-Wan.

"Hunting droids is boring," Vader muttered.

"We learned that in the Clone Wars, sir," Piett said unexpectedly.

Vader felt his jaw drop slightly. He was not sure which surprised him more, the fact that he had verbalised that though or that Piett had taken so free as to comment on it. Vader could not remember the last time someone had said something… light… to him. It had all been serious, commands given or received, sentences pronounced, threats made, philosophy discussed and lessons taught or learned.

It was a relief from those thoughts when there was a beep from the CommScan area.

"Analysis complete sir," said the CommScan officer, "comparing composition of the asteroids with the locations of the destroyed autominers, and some traces of drive trails, we have found a pattern."

"Put it on a datapad and show me," Vader ordered.

The CommScan officer obeyed and was going to hand it up to Piett to hand to Vader when he felt it plucked from his fingers by something invisible.

"Thank you Admiral," Vader said, "but I can get that without you needing to trouble yourself."

As Vader studied the display of projected positions he held the datapad low enough for Leia to study it as well. Some of those could be false, they had not been able to discover exactly how many autominers had been deployed so there could be holes in the pattern. They looked at each other and nodded, that did look and feel correct though.

"Proceed," Vader said.

"Aye sir," Piett replied, "CommScan, feed coordinates to gunnery and helm. Gunnery…"

"Do you see the lesson?" Vader asked in a low tone for Leia's ears as Piett continued to give orders.

Leia thought for a moment and then said, "I think so. Although we can do things with the Force it does not mean we have to do everything ourselves. If we can use our abilities to help others do their jobs then this is better?"

"Exactly," Vader replied. "In this case analysing the asteroids and the drive trails would have let my… our… people work out where the cloaked autominers were eventually, but by using the Force to find some of them we gave extra information which sped the process. There is a temptation, at least I felt it, to be the hero. To let others support your actions when if you supported theirs instead things would go smoother."

Leia looked at Vader. She had been a diplomat. She had been a leader. She had been a politician trying to use the last remnants of democracy the Emperor had left them. She knew how to persuade and support and nurture other people's efforts as well as when it was time to take action herself. Without arrogance she felt this was one of the things Vader was having more to teach himself by 'teaching' her rather than something she had not already learnt elsewhere.

The projected positions given by the computers were not as precise as those given to Leia and Vader by the Force so the _Executor's _weapons reverted to a wider barrage as methodically Piett and his crew hunted down the cloaked autominers. Cloaking devices were expensive, as were machines large and complex enough to break down and refine asteroids without supervision. Each wink of exploding light made tiny with distance represented a significant investment for the Empire that had not been saved by the secrecy of the mining operation or its cloak's concealment.

"I sense danger," Leia commented suddenly, a distant look coming to her face.

"I agree," Vader said, proud that his daughter had picked it up only a few seconds after he had and well before it would have become necessary for him to make the warning. "Admiral, take us out of the asteroid field and have the hyperdrive begin charging."

"Our task is not complete…" Piett began to say, before changing his mind as Vader calmly looked at him, "Aye sir. Helmsman, take us out. Engineer, divert power to hyperdrive."

Slowly the _Executor _rose from the asteroids, having to divert around more than one asteroid large enough to threaten even her and destroy others to clear a more direct path. The occasional thump ran through the deck as a small lump of rock, too small to bother avoiding or to bother shooting, shattered against the _Executor's_ shields. As the ship passed into from the debris field into the dust and regained more freedom to manoeuvre Piett began to relax a little and to judge how successful the mission had been.

"Sir, incoming signals," reported CommScan.

Piett glanced at him, not sure if he was pleased that they had not retreated needlessly or annoyed that their retreat might be hampered.

Two _Victory_-class Star Destroyers escorting an _Immobiliser_-class Interdictor dropped into normal space high and to port of the _Executor_. Almost simultaneously an unescorted _Immobiliser_ appeared to starboard. Scant seconds later a third Interdictor reverted from hyperspace, this one with an ISD for company. Piett looked at their positions, it was not perfect but it was a pretty good attempt at entrapping them. The _Executor_ could destroy any of the groups with ease, or all of them at once for that matter, but it would take too much time to hunt them down and would have been far more difficult had they still been bogged down in the asteroids.

"We could destroy those," Vader said, echoing Piett's thoughts, "but their reinforcements will be on the way. Take us into hyperspace Admiral."

"Aye sir."

There was a short delay as the tension on the bridge rose, the hyperdrive charged, and CommScan began to pick up signs that the Interdictors were preparing their gravity well generators. Vader and Leia remained calm, they could feel this was a race they were going to win, and as the others noticed this they drew strength from this calmness. Then the starfield streaked and blue clouds replaced blackness as the _Executor _made her escape into hyperspace.

Vader watched this for a moment and then spoke. "Admiral, if you will excuse us," he said, "Princess, if you will come with me."

Piett nodded as Vader strode from the bridge, Leia following him. As they walked they did not speak, Leia having little to say and Vader preoccupied with his own thoughts. He had sensed Leia using the Force and had sensed the swirl of angry darkness around her. He had also sensed how that darkness had been sublimated back into the light so he was not concerned, he was curious though as to what had happened and whether Leia would confide in him.

"Sir?" a rather nondescript looking man said as they neared Vader's quarters.

"Yes… Lieutenant," Vader said as he recognised the man and what he was dressed as.

"Your package is in your quarters sir," the man said.

"Good," Vader replied, noting with satisfaction that Leia was suspicious. It might prove inconvenient at times but he'd rather have an insightful student, and definitely an insightful daughter, than a stupid one. "Thank you Lieutenant."

The man nodded and then retreated.

Vader and Leia entered his quarters past the Stormtrooper sentry and as soon as the door shut Vader sank gratefully down into a chair. Being on his feet for so long, and especially when having to use the Force for other purposes as well as to help him remain standing, had been taxing to his strength. Vader reached up and tugged the skincap off and ruffled one hand over his lightly fuzzed scalp, enjoying the sensation of air on his head and of hair on his fingertips before taking the dummy breathmask off as well.

"You did well," Vader said, relaxing into the chair, "droids are not easy to sense. One of the basic tests a Jedi did was using a lightsaber to sense a remote and block sting-blasts from it while your eyesight was blocked. Locating the cloaked autominers was similar, though on a larger scale."

"Luke did that…" Leia said, remembering the story he and Han had told her of that and how Han had teased Luke about the yelps he had let out when he got stung. She still missed them and Chewbacca and had to control her emotions.

"Master Yoda taught it to the younglings in the Temple…" Vader commented, also having to control his emotions as he remembered how he had killed them.

Vader passed one hand up over his forehead and back over his new hair again. He closed his eyes for a moment.

"We both have memories waiting to ambush us," Vader said after a moment's silence, "though mine are memories of the things I have done, while yours are possibly also of things I have done. We are both tired, we both need to meditate and sleep."

"Rest well," Leia said politely, her manners automatic despite her distraction.

Vader looked at Leia as she left, glad she had not asked about the package, and let himself rest a few minutes in his chair. With some effort he got up and made the short way across to the other room where his agent had been discreet enough to put the package. It was a considerable crate and Vader studied it for a moment as he tried to see how it had been secured. It had always been a problem when he had been in the armour as his helmet lenses blocked eye scans, his vocoder prevented voice-prints, and artificial fingertips neither had fingerprints or DNA to analyse.

"Open," Vader said, spotting a grill. There was a click and the crate opened slightly along the seams on the top. Vader pulled the sections back on their hinges and looked in. The light caught the edges of Boba Fett's armour, nicely polished and cleaned to be gleaming. Only the chipped green paint, showing the grey beneath that Jango Fett had preferred, made it apparent this was not new it was so pristine otherwise.

Vader rested one hand's fingertips on the chestplate and although he felt some satisfaction he felt far more guilt than he had anticipated. It had taken a long time for this plan to come to fruition and with hindsight there could have been a better, or at least a less painful, way. Lying there just after the surgery had given him a lot of time to brood and consider how it seemed that the samples of virus discovered in the Emperor's storehouse had delivered a perfect weapon in to his hands.

Trapping Boba Fett through anything but great trickery would have been almost impossible though. Any military force strong enough to ensure his capture or death would have been a tempting target for the Empire, and had Fett co-operated with the Imperials could have been trapped and let Fett regain his reputation with them that way. Fighting Fett face to face would have been satisfying but impractical when it was such a strain even to stand, and Vader had not wanted to wait.

Vader nodded to himself and left the armour where it was. He needed to meditate on this. His attitude seemed to have changed so much in only a few months that he needed to think carefully and see just what he had become.


	18. Chapter 18

The shadows along the edges of the work bay were enough to conceal the figure crouching there, especially since he was dressed almost entirely in black. Only the red stripes up the side of his flightsuit and the occasional glint off the black metalwork of his life support pack and the helmet he was carrying might have caught the mechanics eye. Soontir Fel drew his blaster, checked it was on stun and the safety was off, and gazed across at the fighter sitting in the centre of the bay as he indulged in some last minute introspection.

At the attacks by Vader began to become even more effective through his greater co-operation with the Rebel Alliance, as Vader's propaganda transmissions began to make the Rebels a less repugnant alternative and more began to defect, and as the Emperor's rage grew things had become worse for Fel. Ysanne Isard had started thrashing about in her anger and frustration looking for targets to prove she was doing something, anything, in her attempts to assuage the Emperor. Fel knew he was far less blameless than some of the people that had been destroyed and, without false modesty or conceit, knew that he was also a prominent enough person to make a good trophy.

There were two main problems. His first was wondering if it was possible the offer of alliance Ysanne Isard had made all those years before had been genuine and if it might be repeated. Back then it had been to work with her to fill the void left by the death of Grand Moff Tarkin aboard the Death Star, now it might be to try to fill the void left by Vader. Rejecting Isard a second time could have fatal consequences and she would be more than capable of either killing his wife as punishment after the rejection or as preparation for the offer to make it more likely Soontir would without his wife and in his grief accept.

The second problem though was the main one. His wife was known as Wynessa Starflare but this had been a perfectly normal and legal name change. She had not been to know when she made the change that her much younger brother was going to join the Rebellion, let alone that he would become a hero of the Rebellion. Her motives had been to chose a distinctive stage name rather than to try to hide her birth name of Syal Antilles. Something as simple as a holomag "match the name" quiz could have been enough to betray her.

A lot of the data had been tracked down and erased but as this was years after the fact and in those years backups and copies would have been made there was sure to be something somewhere that had been missed and could be found by a determined investigation. They had already made plans for Syals escape, plans Soontir had deliberately remained ignorant of the details of, and word had been sent to the Fels on Corellian to warn them. Now Soontir needed to make his own escape.

He rose from his semi-crouch and sent a single stunbolt across the hangar and into the back of the mechanic just between his shoulder blades. With speed but not haste Soontir crossed the deck and checked the mechanic was genuinely unconscious before dragging him away from the fighter and off the lift beneath it. Fel looked at the TIE Defender and hoped he was making the right choice of craft. Thanks to Admiral Zaarin's attempted coup these were very rare fighters. Many had been lost when Zaarin destroyed the research facilities that he had been in charge of. Of the relatively few that had remained in Imperial service still more had been lost in fighting those Zaarin had stolen.

Fel had not actually flown one of these before outside of simulation and this TIE Defender here was more a testbed for experimenting with different modifications and developments than a combat fighter. It was still perfectly capable of fighting, though the missile launchers were not loaded, and since performance trials had been planned it was fuelled up and ready to go. The only problem might be the life support. As this fighter had been only making short flights not as much endurance had been required and Fel was concerned life-support packs might have been replaced with more instruments for gathering data.

Connecting his helmet to his personal life support packs and then sealing this over his head Fel clambered up and through the hatch. The pilot's chair was familiar at least and his fingers automatically found the right connectors to link his flightsuit and the fighter. That done Fel ran though the checklist, appreciating the time the designers had taken to include similarities between the Defender and the lesser TIEs in the position of controls. Fel heaved a deep sigh as his fingers paused an instant over the last switch and then he pressed it.

The override kicked in and the doors in the ceiling above him began to open. With the smoothness to be expected from equipment as well maintained as this the lift began to rise and carry the TIE Defender up into the hangar above. As his viewport came level with the deck of the hangar Soontir could see the mechanics beginning to react, some were simply staring, others dashing for commpanels, and others looking as if they were considering trying to be heroes. The lift was still a few feet down rather than locked into position with the hangar floor but Fel hit the repulsorlifts and his fighter burst upwards like a Wampa erupting from a snowdrift.

Fel opened the throttles and sent the TIE Defender streaking across the hangar, mechanics diving out of the way and provoking a couple of wild Blaster shots that posed more danger to the other mechanics than to him, and out into space. As the research station dwindled behind him his comm clicked.

"TIE Defender, you are directed and ordered to surrender immediately…" a rather nasal voice started to say.

Fel considered replying but decided that he had said all he needed to say to everyone he had needed to say it to. He had more immediate concerns. It had been an unpleasant surprise when they arrived and he had seen the patrols were so much heavier than he had anticipated. Star Destroyers and smaller craft were moving to intercept, their tractor beam ranges being projected on Fel's instruments, and he had to change course to avoid these.

Soontir swallowed a curse as he saw a trio of red-striped TIE Interceptors launch from the research station's main hangar bay. To get onboard he'd needed a plausible cover story and the only one he could think of was to say that he, as commander of the 181st Imperial Fighter Group, had wished to visit to assess how much re-equipping with T/Ds would improve the effectiveness of his unit. This was not as simple a question as it might appear at first glance as training and tactics compensated a lot and some of the TIE Defender's abilities would not be used on the sort of missions the 181st undertook. Whether to modify the T/D into something more suited to the 181st or modify the 181st into something more suited to the T/D had been the question.

Now though he was going to have to conflict with his own people. Fel changed course but he could see that he would not be able to avoid both the tractor beams and the TIE Interceptors. They were slower than the TIE Defender he was flying but they could still block him as there were three of them. In some ways it would have been better if there had been four, if they had grabbed an extra pilot to fly the Interceptor Soontir had flown to the station, as having to allow for a pilot they hadn't drilled with and didn't know could have been awkward.

Fel's eyes narrowed beneath his helmet as he noticed something strange about the approach, it wasn't quite right for the tactics. Deftly he twitched his control yoke and twitched his fighter slightly, the laser fire passing harmlessly past rather than hitting him.

As he continued his evasive manoeuvres and his attackers continued to try to compensate for this and hit him Fel knew this was one of the differences between himself and Turr Phennir. Even if he'd decided to destroy rather than try to block a fighter Fel would have felt obliged to give one warning himself, especially if he suspected the fighter was being flown by someone he'd known as long as Fel had known Phennir, rather than simply opening fire.

Fel flipped the switches to activate his own guns as yet more laser fire hissed around him.

Besides morality aside TIE Defenders were expensive and there were plenty in the Empire who would rather lose TIE Interceptors and their pilots in a capture attempt than lose a TIE Defender to the Interceptor pilots playing it safer. There was a lull in the laser fire as the three Interceptors broke away for a moment to regroup. Fel gave a glance to their positions and then turned to meet their attack.

The range dropped as Fel and his erstwhile colleagues hurtled towards each other and then suddenly Fel brought his TIE Defender into a rolling weave, half a second before the TIE Interceptors split in their attempt to pincer in at him. Fel continued his roll and turn to drop his sights onto Turr Phennir's fighter. He had been concerned that there would be a double trick, that something else would be hidden in the standard "unexpected" break, but it seemed not. Fel squeezed the trigger and his guns spat energy at his second in command.

Lightning cracked across Phennir's fighter as the ion cannon bolts bathed it in blue light. The engines went from a living glowing red to dead darkness and the TIE Interceptor began to tumble as some of its thrusters fired in an unbalanced fashion. Fel turned his craft to avoid what was now an unpowered lump of metal. It had been tempting after Phennir had tried to kill him to use the TIE Defender's four lasers as well as, or instead, of the two ion cannon but Fel saw no need to kill unless it was necessary. He felt a moment of pride in his pilots, however awkward their reactions were, as he saw the other two Interceptors quickly adjust.

Both the other fighters had been acting as wingmen to Phennir but now he was disabled the less experienced pilot had, after only the briefest hesitation, dropped smoothly into wingman position on the more experienced. Fel cut in a little more throttle to increase speed and widen his turn, spinning the TIE Defender around and out of the line of fire. His fighter jolted as he took a hit but the shields easily absorbed the damage, the Defender might be a larger target but it was powerfully shielded.

Fel twisted the Defender around to counter attack, more ion cannon bolts stitching through space but only one reaching a target. Not all his pilots were as arrogant as Phennir, some had actually studied Fel's tactics and it appeared these had learned enough to be able to anticipate him better.

Better was not better enough though, even a single ion cannon hit that a shielded craft would have ignored could be enough to slow a TIE Interceptor. There was a little wobble in the turn as the Imperial craft came around which was either a skilful deception or showed a malfunction in the thrusters. Fel knew he needed to end this, and soon. So as he was being a Rebel he decided to play Rebel and settled into a head on attack.

The TIE Interceptor pilots reacted a little slowly to this, they seemed to be looking for the trick, trying to anticipate the clever move or the subtle evasion until they remembered how strong TIE Defender shields were. Fel and they opened fire almost at the same instant, fire from eight laser cannon and two ion cannon crossing in space between them. Emerald shield scatter almost dazzled Fel as his shields absorbed the barrage but as the lightshow dimmed he could see that both TIE Interceptors were now dead in space.

His shields were considerably weakened so Fel shunted power from his weapon capacitors to them. He didn't plan on firing any more, he just wanted to get away into open space. The problem was that there was none, the delay had let the net close and let TIE Fighters launch from some of the starships to fill in the gaps between them. There seemed to be no escape.

Fel knew that if he were captured then under the torture, which Ysanne Isard would take great pleasure in ordering, he would give up information. There was only one sure way to prevent himself talking and possibly saying something that would endanger his wife or family. Fel looked at the ships, their positions and speeds, chose one, and then diverted every scrap of power into the engines and into thrust. One thing even Imperial Intelligence could not do was interrogate shredded freeze dried fragments of corpse.

A red light flashed on his console and Soontir heard a click. Briefly he smelled something, something which had been introduced to his air supply though the links with the fighter, before his head lolled to one side as he passed out. More lights played across the consoles as remote control was taken of the TIE Defender and it slowed and turned towards the ISD that had been keeping its distance and observing. Had Fel known it he had passed a test. Had Fel still been conscious he might have wondered what the _Admonitor_ was doing briefly back in the Empire rather than still being in exile.


End file.
